Kommando
by Portuguese Irish
Summary: In which Herzog, an archaeologist and an army of mouthy Nazi zombies try to take over a district in Norway.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: **after watching Dead Snow 2 I couldn't help but feel sorry for Herzog; now the Nazis lose in EVERY movie... Also, his 'fuck-you-I-have-zee-superior-rank' attitude is hilarious.

And thus, this story was created.

English is my second language, and German (2 years of high school and some desperate tries to talk to some of my cousins before switching to Portuguese) is just the third so... I'm very sorry for any mistakes.

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><p><em>They had had all that work to gather valuable things... and now some bunch of idiots had taken everything away! Anyway, not everything was bad, they had managed to retrieve... 1 from 180 boxes...<em>

_Herzog let out a sigh, because he was used to sigh, and not sighing would be awkward. In fact, trying to stop himself from 'breathing' would be awkward and take a lot of time, time that he didn't have at the moment. There were too many things to be done:_

_-retrieve the missing 179 boxes_

_-gather some more loot, because no one knows tomorrow's day_

_-retrieve the coin taken by the one-armed thief_

_-find ammo, because unlike some of his men appear to think, machine-guns are way more effective with them_

_-find his Mauser, he surely dropped it somewhere... and it can't be difficult to find a Mauser in a snowy mountain_

_-finally get rid of that small village with a weird name_

_-find more men to accomplish the previous task_

_With a snort, Herzog followed the deep footprints the one-armed thief had left. His soldiers followed him._

_He had retrieved the missing coin, but had lost an arm. Stupid thief, first his loot and now his arm; Herzog would not be that generous when they met again. But as a booby prize, he had gotten the thief's arm. Not as good as his own arm, of course, but it had to do, at least to salute his victorious troops._

_Now that the coin was safe, he could go on the quest for more men and get rid of the village, which would automatically give him the time and the perfect occasion to gather more loot, and maybe ammo, and then he could go rescue his Mauser._

_But the thing was... he needed men, real men, not skeletons. That was a painful blow and Herzog decided he needed to rest from such a busy day to decide what to do now. And as he and his troops made their way back to their cave, moving quickly and quietly in the forest, Herzog saw something that caught his attention. And he looked up, to the highest of the Nine Realms, and thanked._

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><p>Agnes locked the door behind her, adjusting the shovel on her shoulder and the folded plastic under her arm. She could have done that yesterday and already be on her way home, but no... laziness had taken over. So she made her way to the small archaeological site she was in charge of, not very distant from the small hut she had rented to be her headquarters during that week. The place was beautiful, a forest in the base of some snowy mountains in Øksfjord. The archaeological site was nothing exceptional, though; just a big runestone that had been found in the place where someone wanted a hut. So there she was, to save the stone, register the context and then cover it with a plastic, hoping it would keep the context safe from the works to build the hut.<p>

To anyone else it was just a square in the ground, surrounded by piles of boards and a few working material, but for Agnes it was a little bit of ground with History, and she would like to know if there were more runestones nearby, because they were not supposed to be there. She covered the small square with the plastic and began to bury it with the dirt the men had removed to start building the hut.

And she was so lost in thoughts that she nearly didn't see him. But she did, and stopped what she was doing to take a better look: a man dressed in a Nazi uniform. SS uniform, more precisely. Totenkopf, now that he was getting closer. To be more accurate, a Totenkopf Einsatzgruppe Standartenführer. It was a very good costume, and the make-up wasn't that bad too. Maybe just a guy looking for the place of the party, but she couldn't help him with that.

Herzog took her curiosity and lack of fear like a good sign; that could only mean she was worthy of that task. He stopped in front of her, and only the semi-buried square separated them. He saluted her like a true German gentleman and, much for his pleasure, she saluted back with a smile:

'Heil Hitler.', he growled. She kept smiling; cool trick with the voice:

'Heil Hitler.', she replayed. Then they just stared at each other, and she had the time to conclude his make-up, or mask, was really good. Too good. A shiver went down her spine when her hazel eyes met his blue's, and she couldn't tell what impressed her the most; if the intensity or the fierce shine of his eyes.

'Sie sind eine Archäologin.' (You are an archaeologist.), he stated. Better, he growled, slowly. This time Agnes frowned:

'Ja...' (Yes...), she replayed; why speaking German in Norway? She tried to look away and find a hidden camera or see someone coming from among the trees saying 'Ha, you got pranked!', but she just couldn't look away from... that man. Because that was a man in a costume. Totally a man in a costume.

He deviated from the square and she tightened her grip on the shovel. Herzog noticed that and the thought of being attacked by a delicate young woman with a shovel amused him. He raised both hands:

'Ich bin ein Freund!' (I am a friend!), he exclaimed. Growled. She tilted her head and he stopped at a few distance from her, and Agnes felt a sudden stench of death, 'Und ich brauche Seine Hilfe.' (And I need your help.)

'Wozu?' (What for?), and he took a step forward and she didn't flich. Much. 'Wer sind Sie? Und warum sprechen Sie Deutsch, wir sind in Norwegen!' (Who are you? And why do you speak German, we are in Norway!)

He didn't answer, instead grabbed one of her hands and pressed it against his neck. She was about to kick him, but then she felt something; there was no blood running through his jugular and gosh, touching that neck felt like touching an ice cube. They were close enough that she could feel his breath, icy as the northen wind:

'Sie sind tot!' (You are dead!), she muttered, widening her eyes. Her knees gone weak and she would have fallen if the shovel wasn't there and if he wasn't still holding her hand. 'Wie? Was ist los?' (How? What's happening?)

'Es spielt keine Rolle...' (It doesn't matter...), he assured, grinning. He let her hand go and she looked at it, feeling it abnormally cold. He then showed her a coin, a Reichmark with the imperial eagle and the swastika. She frowned, looking at it carefully, and then handed it back to the man. Dead man. Living-dead man, whatever, who was visibly satisfied with that gesture, 'Ich hatte mehr... Ich muss sie finden.' (I had more... I must find them.)

She just looked at him. Herzog sighed; apparently women were still complicated, and he really needed this one; archaeologists are a prized possession:

'Fräulein Archäologin, ich besuche Seine Hilfe.' (Lady archaeologist, I need your help.), his grin widened, and suddenly even the skull on his officer cap seemed to do the same, 'Ich habe einen Krieg zu gewinnen.' (I have a war to win.). Agnes was still quiet, and he added. Growled. 'Sie werden Belohnt.' (You will be rewarded.)

She bit her lower lip, the Indiana Jones that every archaeologist has in itself demaning for an adventure with someone or something that was apparently a Nazi. A Nazi zombie, that could only mean more adventure. So, why not? What could possibly go wrong? Her work was done, she lived alone and had a few more days to stay around... Agnes smiled:

'Ja!' (Yes!), it was everything she could say. And she couldn't tell if she should feel even more enthusiastic or be very afraid of that grin, that got even wider:

'Gut.' (Good.), he looked at the square, curiously. 'Was war das?' (What was that?)

'Es war ein Runenstein, 800 vor Christus.' (It was a runestone, 800 CE.), she explained enthusiastically. Herzog glanced at her again:

'Sie verdienen schönen Dinge. Kommen Sie, bitte.' (You deserve finer things. Come with me.)

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><p>Agnes made a note to self to always carry a bag with a jacket, because it was ridiculously cold, even though it was a sunny day. But the snow made sense, that would explain the Standartenführer's nearly perfect preservation. That and the fact of him being a relatively recent corpse. Walking corpse:<p>

'Ich weiß nicht Ihren Namen.' (I don't know your name.), Herzog stated, glancing over his shoulder:

'Agnes, Standartenführer...?', she managed to reply between chattering teeth:

'Herzog.'

They climbed some more, until Agnes noticed the entrance of a cave hidden by the snow. For a moment, she hoped to find a zombie Viking or a zombie Neanderthal; that would be the archaeological discovery of the year! Herzog got in and she trotten after him, just to conclude it was much warmer outside:

'Wohnen Sie hier?' (Do you live here?), she asked, looking around. It looked like an ordinary cave, with a low cave ceiling littered with sharp stalactites. It was deeper than what she had previously thought and the long passageway was iluminated by only one fire torch:

'Wir wohnen hier.' (We live here.), Herzog corrected as they reached a bifurcation. He signaled her to take a look into the left hollow, and what she saw was a huge and dark space iluminated by two fire torches, with maybe 80 soldiers walking around or just sitting on the ground. There was a Nazi flag hanging under one of the torches and things that looked like grenades and fire-arms on the ground. One of the soldiers, who was sitting close to the opening, came to stand right in front of her and opened his mouth, dripping blood all over his filthy uniform, blue eyes wide with hunger. Before Agnes could react a gloved hand hit the solder and his jaw snapped painfully. The soldier half-whimpered, half-snarled something like 'Scheiße!'

All the soldiers looked at her, and she felt smaller and looked over at Herzog, not knowing what to do:

'Sie ist keine Nahrung!' (She's no food!), the Standartenführer warned his men, raising a threatening index finger. A unapproving growl reverberated through the cave. 'Sie ist eine Archäologin, und sie wird uns helfen!' (She's an archaeologist and she will help us!) He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the hollow at the right side of the bifurcation, a much smaller cave that was clearly his personal space; it had a field bed and a huge stalagmite in the middle of the cave, that Herzog had turned into a table by placing a wooden box over it. A candle burned over a helmet placed near the field bed.

He grabbed the box and opened it in front of her:

'Ich hatte 180...' (I had 180...), he explained, 'Sie müssen die anderen finden.' (You must find the others.)

'Sie können überall sein, es wird Zeit brauchen!' (They can be anywhere, it will take time!), Agnes wrapped her arms around herself, trying to ignore the unbearable cold. 'Aber... ich kann...' (But... I can...)

'Gut! Sehr gut!' (Good, very good!), Herzog cut her off and closed the box, eyes shiny in the dark. Then he frowned, 'Nein... Zunächst Sie müssen mir helfen, um mehr Soldaten zu finden.' (No... First you must help me to find more soldiers.)

She frowned too, but nodded; that was way easier than looking for boxes or only the boxes' content, piece by piece:

'Ich weiß vieler gute Orte.' (I know many good places.), she replayed. Herzog nodded. 'Wann muss ich anfangen?' (When do I begin?)

'Morgen.' (Tomorrow.), the Standartenführer decided. He placed the box on the 'table' and walked away. Agnes followed him and didn't really expected him to take her back to the place where they had met. 'Hier bei 7.' (Here, at 7 a.m.) She just nodded and watched him leave.

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><p>'What is wrong with you, did your brain freeze?', the Doctor asked Herzog when he reached the cave's entrance. Herzog rose an eyebrow. A few heads lurked from the dark and bettings were made. 'What was that?'<p>

'A lady archaeologist, did your eyes freeze?', Herzog answered, looking away from the Doctor to the snowy mountains, admiring the beautiful day:

'It's alive!'

'Jealous?', and with that the Doctor gave up and walked away, rambling something under his breath. Herzog heard his soldiers growl angrily, some of them were bad losers. He grinned, eyes lost in the sky; of course she was alive... for now; if he succeeded in his revenge, he would kill her painlessly and then offer her the Eternity to work for him, which was an irrecusable offering because he knew all women's secret wish was to be young, beautiful and useful forever. On the other hand, if he failed that would only mean she was useless and hadn't found the right soldiers, and for that she would die, permanently.

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><p><strong>*<strong> all those 'Sie's and -en endings mean it's a formal conversation.

**Weeeeeee, review?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the review! :3

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><p>That night Agnes couldn't sleep at all, partially because she spent almost the whole night looking for stuff in the Internet about zombies and also because she was too excited to sleep; let's say it's far from archaeological professionalism to go out for a treasure hunt (may the treasure be Nazi war loot or Nazi soldiers who were supposed to be dead), but who's the archaeologist who never dreamt of doing such?<p>

Besides, no one would know; she would tell no one, she had no one to tell... and if she did, no one would believe her.

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><p>Herzog found out she was punctual. But unless other archaeologists he had seen before, this one was completely alone, not even a single peasent to carry her huge and certainly heavy backbag and her probably equally heavy duffel bag. Herzog thought himself a generous man, but he was a Standartenführer, leader of the Reich's elite, and officers are not supposed to carry civilian's bags, even if those civilians are young ladies. Besides, this one lady was though, walking determinately like the snow and the climb didn't bother her.<p>

This time Agnes wore a thick jacket, cargos and mountain trainers, but was already regretting leaving her sun glasses behind:

'Warum sind Sie allein?' (Why are you aone?), Herzog asked suddenly when they were almost reaching the cave. Agnes shrugged:

'Kleines arbeit.' (Small job.), she replayed. There was a soldier standing at the entrance, kicking the snow, but he immediately stood still and saluted his Standartenführer as he got in. It was the same soldier from the day before. Agnes wasn't sure of what to do, but when the soldier tried to make her trip she did him the finger. He narrowed his eyes and made an effort to spit blood towards her, but she was already gone:

'Sie sind Soldaten, sie sind unhöflich.' (They are soldiers, they are rude.), he explained, leading her to his little private chamber. The other was quiet and empty:

'Mein Bruder war ein Soldat.' (My brother was a soldier.), Agnes said. Herzog just nodded, ignoring the light sadness in her voice; good, so she already knew how they behaved and she probably knew how to defend herself; this was how he liked his subordinates. He stopped near the 'table' and turned around to face her:

'What I want you do to... is to find me more men, capable men. And I need weapons and ammunition, and I trust you to make your archaeological magic and retrieve from the dirt the most glorious things!', the Standartenführer demanded. Agnes placed the duffel bag on the ground, removed the heavy backbag and placed it on the ground, looking for something inside it. She then showed Herzog a map of that zone with various red circles:

'These are all the places that have... frozen... German soldiers. Or used to have, this map is a little outdated and there are a lot of people paying well for World War Two artefacts. Stupid thieves...', even though she was about to be something like that, even if just for a while. Herzog nodded; stupid thieves. 'What I plan to do first is using this.' and she opened the duffel bag and showed the Standartenführer an instrument that he thought was a mine-detector. 'It's a metal-detector, it will find everything from belt buckles to helmets.', she shoved it into the bag again, 'I'm going to check all those areas.'

'If it's a metal-detector, it detects metal...', Herzog grumbled, 'There are more things made of metal that are not part of a soldier's uniform.'

'In this area, those have to be the only metal things I'm going to find.', Agnes assured:

'Gut...', Herzog replayed after a while, and made his way outside. Agnes picked up the duffel bag and her backbag and trotted after him:

'Will you come, Herr Standartenführer?', she asked when she finally caught up with him. Herzog said nothing; it was tempting, he had seen archaeologists work once and he had thought it fascinating, but now he had no time for that, he had to think on their next move. And he would feel ignorant, as he always felt when someone was doing something he couldn't do, and he didn't like to feel ignorant:

'Science for those of science...', he finally replayed, stopping near the soldier at the entrance, 'You are going with Fräulein Agnes, do whatever she tells you to do and protect her with your life, are we understood?', Herzog asked. Demanded. Agnes smiled; he remembered her name. The soldier saluted:

'Jawohl!' (Yes, sir!)

'Gut.', Herzog looked at him for a moment, then to Agnes, and he finally walked back to the cave.

When he disappeared in the darkness, the soldier chuckled, and it sounded gutural and gurgling:

'You are so fucked, and you know why?', the soldier asked. Growled. Seemed they all growled. Agnes rose an eyebrow, 'I have no fucking life, ha! You're done!'

'Whatever. Take this one, please.', and she handed him the duffel bag. With a resigned grunt, the soldier got hold of it and followed her to the eastern slope of the mountain. They walked for a while in silence, until Agnes decided to try and make some conversation, because that guy was clearly able to chat, 'So... what is your name?'

'A name is your personal idendity, and you have no identity once your join the Waffen. You're just another one.', he grinned; he was tall, only tall, unlike Herzog, who was big. His skin was something between dark blue and a light shade of purple and blood dripped endlessly from his mouth. Agnes was going to reply that, but he was faster. 'Thought Herzog was the smartass one, didn't you? He thinks he's the smartass one too, but he's wrong. There's only this retarded ass, but his head was cut open so I guess there's something wrong with his brain. Don't talk to him, it's a waste of time.', Agnes frowned and tried to speak, but the soldier was faster again. 'I was going to marry, you know? But because of that greedy bastard instead of a wedding ring on my finger I got a bullet in my throat! Just in case you're wondering where this blood comes from, you want some? It's tasty. But I guess I just enjoy a good chat, you know? I remember being 10 and the teacher hitting me really hard because I didn't shut up for a second. The bastard was a jew, you know? You should have seen his face some years later, when I stormed into his house with my SS uniform! The black one, not this one.'

'Are all of them like you?', she finally asked as he paused to take an unecessary breath. She let out a yelp as he smacked her head:

'I'm unique, Acne! Unique! You'll never find someone as brilliant as me! I'll tell you everything about everybody, I know everyone; Gottfried is boring, Hans is boring, Herzog is beyond boring, Dietrich stopped in time at the age of 5, dumbest guy I've ever seen, Richard is boring, Fritz... no, Fritz is my besty, I'd rather give my non-life for him than for you, Jürgen-'

'Wait a minute, what did you call me?', she stopped, frowning. The soldier stopped too and made a face:

'Acne. You're slow.'

'Don't call me that.', and unlike Herzog, he didn't ignore the sadness in her voice. They proceeded in silence, until she stopped again and let her backbag on the snow. 'That bag, please.'

'Sascha.', he grunted, handing her the bag. She frowned, 'My name, you asked it. Goddamit woman, you're slow! A slow freak, you must be a really good grave-digger, or Herzog would have ignored you or just killed you for fun. You know how funny it is to kill someone? If they kill you, it hurts as fuck and it's damn scary, now if it's you killing them it's total fun!'

'If you don't like Herzog, what are you doing here?', she asked as she switched on the metal-detector. Of course Sascha followed her when she began to walk back and forth, playing absently with the now empty duffel bag:

'He wasn't always a bastard, I'm a veteran you know? I was with him before we came to Norway, he was actually a hero back then. Boring, but a hero. Then he got greedy and got us all killed, then stuffed us all in that cave. And in the meantime he was never the same again, I never understood what happened there.'

'So, you remember?', Agnes asked, looking carefully to the detector's small screen, waiting for something to show up, 'I mean... you're dead.'

'Oh, so delicate from you! I'm clinically dead, the Doctor said.' he knocked his helm-covered head, happily. 'But it's everything here! Master race of corpses! It was like waking up from a good night of sleep, but then I saw Herzog's face and it was even uglier than before. And the best part is that I don't feel pain, and if you cut my limbs off the Doctor will stitch them together and I'm good as new! But in case I get my head blown off I need Herzog, he does some weird trick and everything goes back to normal. Normal... eh!', he chuckled again with the sound of a drowning man. Agnes couldn't tell if she was tired of him or if she found him... interesting. 'Looking for mines? Does Herzog want mines? I thought archaeologists looked for stones, not mines!'

'Those are called 'lithics' and pre-history is not my field.', she explained, concluding there was nothing in that place. She put the metal-detector in the bag again, grabbed her backbag and moved to another slope. 'Herzog... didn't tell you? I mean you, his army.'

'This is no army, Acney... this is a bunch of German soldiers, SS soldiers! And we had to run up here because a handfull of peasents rebelled against Herzog, and of course we had to come to death with that stupid bastard!', he kicked some snow and she noticed he limped lightly, 'He said you were going to help us, but not how.'

'I'll find more men! And next time you call me that I'll kick you in the balls.'

'Find us some vehicles and a nice and comfy house too, can you? I no longer fear such threats,' he grinned widely, showing his blood-stained teeth. 'but I'd like to know why I can't call you Acne, because it seems we're going to be comrades.'

Agnes looked at him, deadpan, and wondered how many levels of awkwardness would be raised by having a sentimental talk with a zombie. A zombie that couldn't shut up, because he was already rambling something about acne during his adolescence. But she couldn't deny Sascha made her feel more comfortable than Herzog:

'My brother used to call me that.' she finally answered, interrupting his story on how he tried to steal a cake from the kitchen when he was just a young recruit. He went quiet, humming for a little, and looked away from her:

'And your brother is dead.', he supposed:

'How did you guess?'

'If he used, he doesn't do that anymore. And or he died, or he's a dumbass who doesn't care about his sister. And you sound sad, and you seem to have a thing for dead things because look at you now, so he's most likely to be dead. How did it happen?' Agnes was a little taken aback with that, until she shrugged:

'He was a paratrooper. One day, during an exhibition, the parachute didn't open... I was 10.'

Sascha just nodded and didn't talk again until they reached their destination. He observed in silence as Agnes prospected the area with the metal-detector, having negative results again. When they began to move for another slope, Sascha decided it was time to chat again:

'Your brother was a genius for calling you 'Acne', and I'm a genius too for thinking about calling you 'Acne', so consider this a tribute to your genius brother being called 'Acne' by me!'

And she laughed, surprising herself for doing such. She decided she liked Sascha:

'Whatever!'

'Ha, you know I'm right! Right... Nazi... get it?', he laughed too, even though it sounded like a howl. Then his face adopted a serious expression, 'We did lose the war, didn't we? What happened after then war? How's the world doing now?', but he added, before she could answer 'Wait, let me introduce you to Fritz first, then you tell us that story, because if you tell me and I tell him he won't believe me and he'll mostly stuff my pants with snow and that's really annoying.'

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><p>Herzog sat on his field bed, looking at the map in his hands; if all those places had soldiers, good soldiers, victory was his. He then frowned, starting to think he should have gone with the archaeologist. His archaeologist, by the way, or maybe he should have send someone else with her instead of Sascha, because Sascha... Sascha was Sascha, there was no other way of saying that. But Sascha was one of his best men, and Herzog has this little secret hope that there was stil some of the old comradeship between them.<p>

He shook his head; he was above those things, intrigues and gossips, and battles and wars wouldn't be won if he wasted energy thinking about what his subordinates thought about him; they had to obey, easy as that, the lady archaeologist included:

'Your brain did freeze, didn't it?', the Doctor asked and Herzog nearly jumped out of his skin. The Standartenführer stood up and snarled angrily, because he was big and mighty and the Doctor was small and fragile. 'She needs food, and water, and warmth. You can't give her that!'

'She's not coming to live with us, she's working for me.', Herzog went outside, but the Doctor went after him:

'She'd make a nice dinner, the men are hungry and excited after what happened, keeping her close won't do any good!', the smaller man bumped into the Standartenführer, who had stopped suddenly at the entrance of the cave:

'We don't need to eat.', Herzog grumbled looking over his shoulder, to the Doctor. 'And in case you didn't notice, my men are soldiers, and I am their commander. They do as I say, and that's it.'

'You're deaf too, perfect...', the Doctor replayed, coming to stand by his side. 'What do you plan to do with her, after you satisfied your little caprice?'

'What caprice?'

'Of having someone doing your work for you!', and the Doctor would say more, but Herzog's hand was already firmly clasped around his neck, and the smaller zombie regretted saying that out loud:

'You know nothing.', Herzog hissed and his eyes sparkled dangerously. He let go the Doctor, who immediately put a safe distance between him and the Standartenführer. With a grunt, Herzog looked to the snow-covered landscape, losing himself in thoughts once more as he clenched his jaw bitterly; he could find more men himself, of course he could... but besides the prestige of having someone specialised in finding things working for him, he just wanted to know who was right, if he or his men.

He wasn't deaf, because if he was he wouldn't have caught the sound of Agnes laughter, carried in the soft breeze. Frowing, he decided to see what was happening.

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><p><strong>Weeeeeee, review?<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the review! :3

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><p>Not that he cared... And that sound didn't kind of fascinate him. Probably Sascha was just being dumb again; he had been dumb in life, and now was even dumber than before. And if he could remember, people usually laugh when they see something funny, and normally funny things are stupid.<p>

He was right; Sascha was... well... Sascha. Only Sascha would imitate the cossack's dance with an empty bag on his head. And Agnes seemed utterly amused by all of that. Herzog dropped his binoculars, that hung slowly on the leather strap around his neck, and he considered joining his soldier and his archaeologist just to remember them that was a scientific expedition. Then Agnes laughed again, louder and stronger. Herzog looked into his binoculars again; Sascha had fallen face first in the snow. He allowed himself to smirk and shook his head; he wouldn't join them, she was happy and Sascha was happy too. The soldier was happy like the Standartenführer hadn't seen him for ages, and the young woman... well, way more at ease than when she was with him.

Even though he didn't join them he thought it was a great idea to follow them. And so he did when Agnes finally calmed down, prospected the area, noted something in a notebook and moved on. They walked for a long while, until Agnes and Sascha stopped in a rocky outcrop and she picked up from her backbag something to eat and a bottle of water. Herzog, hidden behind some dead pine trees, dropped his binoculars again and rolled his eyes; maybe he should kill her already and spare her from activities such as eating, drinking, sleeping... the need of warmth... all of them useless and weakening, and good soldiers of the Reich, and archaeologists too, couldn't be useless or weak. He sat cross legged, making a little pile of snow in front of him; on the other hand, he needed her alive, at least for now... that worked like a camouflage, she could go unnoticed to places his troops couldn't and get vital information or artefacts.

Then she screamed. With the rush, Herzog managed to hit his own nose with the binoculars. Grumbling angrily and finally looking into the binoculars, he found out Agnes had screamed because another of his soldiers had sneaked from behind and stuffed snow into her jacket. That had to be Fritz, because where Sascha was Fritz had to be too, and where Fritz was so there was a 99,9% probability of Sascha being around too. Well, at least, in spite of Sascha's and now Fritz's stupid games, Agnes was working. Herzog decided he had seen too much, so he stood up, shook the snow from his leather trench coat and walked away.

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><p>'Acne, this is Fritz! Fritz, this is Acne!', Sascha exclaimed happily when Fritz sneaked from behind Agnes and stuffed snow into her jacket. She screamed and he made a face. 'Annoying, isn't it? Told you...!'<p>

'Fuck... And my name is Agnes, not Acne... Where did the asshole come from, I didn't hear him!', Agnes mumbled and undressed her jacket to shake off the snow. She then glanced at the new arrived; he was smaller than Fritz, his skin was blueish, his eyes were brown and he had a small hole in his chest. Both of them wore "Erbsenmuster", or "44 Dot" camos, and she felt suddenly curious to know everything about them and the rest of those zombies. But before she could even ask, Sascha was faster again:

'He's a sentinel, he stays under the snow to keep an eye in the surroundings! Now Acney, tell us about the world!'

Which she did, while moving around the mountain, prospecting and noting down all the places where the detector accused something. That took them the rest of the day and the two soldiers were quiet, listening carefully. At some point Fritz decided to carry her backbag.

It was already dark when they went back to the cave. Agnes was glad they knew the mountain, because without the map she had no idea of where she was, and she found out too late her flashlight had no batteries:

'So... afterall...', Fritz spoke for the first time. Growled, and he sounded thoughtful. 'What are we doing here? The war was lost, National Socialism is no more and gays are getting married! What are we doing here? I don't want to be here, this sounds like a horrible place to be!', he then frowned and patted Agnes in the back, maybe with too much strenght. 'I'm so sorry for you, Acne.'

'Will everybody call me 'Acne''?, she asked as she regained her balance. Both the soldiers nodded, grinning:

'There's no better way of being accepted by a group than being given a nickname!', Sascha exclaimed wisely. They stopped for a while, so that Agnes could rest a little before they started climbing the most steep part of the mountain, that leaded to the cave. The snow began to fall, slowly, and Sascha frowned. 'Do you want a piggy back ride, Acney?'

'No.'

'We're Nazis, we don't ask! We do!', Fritz said. Agnes had no other option but letting herself behind carried when Sascha grabbed her wrists and Fritz her ankles. The two soldiers ran, not really bothered by her weight and the bag's, and it didn't take them long to reach the cave, get in and drop her unceremoniously in front of Herzog, who was standing at the entrance of his little chamber:

'Ihre Archäologin, Herr Standartenführer!' (Your archaeologist, sir!), they exclaimed in unison and saluted, before placing carefully both bags next to Agnes and leaving to the other chamber. Herzog rolled his eyes and watched as Agnes stood up, still a little dumbfounded. She saluted him too, but with the wrong arm. Herzog frowned and she changed the arm. His expression smoothed:

'Und so?' (And so?), he asked. She scratched her head:

'I'm afraid... only 4 places have what you are looking for. All of them in the norther slopes. If I had a GPR I would be able to tell you exactly how many soldiers are available, but I don't have any with me.', she said. Herzog frowned again; to start with, what was a GPR? Nevermind, that was her business, all he cared was that she had found something:

'There are villages in that direction... am I right?', he said, mostly to himself. He began to pace back and forth, ignoring Agnes who had started to shiver visibly with cold. 'That little village with the strange name... exactly! Perfekt! (Perfect!), his blue eyes met her's and he grinned widely. 'I'll take you home, you seem tired and I'll need you fresh for tomorrow.'

Agnes just nodded and followed him. As they left, various heads lurked from the bigger cave, eyes shining in the dark and noisy useless breathing filling the silence:

'I say... he's going to kill her... tomorrow!', said one of the soldiers. One of his comrades slapped his head:

'No, he's clearly going to kill her when he doesn't need her anymore!', he opined:

'Well, I say he's not going to kill her!', Sascha exclaimed, and all those pairs of shiny eyes turned to him. He shrugged. 'Just saying...'

'I say we should kill her.', the Doctor grumbled and everybody looked at him. 'She's not one of us and she won't bring any good either! She's corrupting the Standartenführer's mind and-'

'The Standartenführer said she would help us... and she hasn't harmed us.', another voice said. 'I don't mind having her around, it's not my business.', and several grumbles of approval were heard:

'We should kill her, like that group of noisy thieves!', the Doctor tried again. 'She represents the enemy, she's a local, she's-'

'What if we tie the Doctor and hang him in a tree?', Fritz suggested.

And that was how Herzog found the Doctor in his way back to the cave. With a chuckle, he used is SS dagger to cut the rope made of guts, probably some 'war relic' from the recent events:

'I don't know what happened, but I'm sure you deserved that.', Herzog commented, walking away with both hands behind his back, once more lost in thoughts. He went straight to his little chamber, sat on the field bed and removed his officer cap, running his hand through his shaved head absently. He recalled the sound of Agnes laughter and it had a strange, but not unpleasent, effect on him; it made him feel cozy inside, and he knew he was the last... man... thing... on earth that should, or deserved to, feel cozy. But on the other hand, it made him angry; why Sascha and Fritz, those fools, and not him? Brilliant minds are supposed to get along with each other, not with a pair of retards! She should laugh with him, not with them.

The Standartenführer rested his chin on the palm of his hand, narrowing his eyes; he was not jealous, he was just... hmm... taking care of what was rightfully his. Becuase she was his, she was working for him, so she had to be his. Not Sascha's. Or Fritz's... they'd never have the brilliant idea of having an archaeologist to work with them. Maybe she could find the Holy Grail and restaure the old glory!

Herzog did a note to self to talk about that with her; _Then she'll realize it's more interesting to talk to me than watching someone with a bag on the head. Even because they can't say more than three words at a time, it must be annoying to spend the whole day with them. I get annoyed, so she'll be annoyed too. I'm going with her tomorrow, no more annoyances._, he thought with a grunt. Then he laid down, planning to stay there for a little while admiring the box over the stalagmite. But after a while that became boring, and he decided to close his eyes a little, just for the sake of closing his eyes. What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

><p><em>'...Sascha? Sascha? Sascha?...', Fritz's voice echoed through the cave. That was driving Herzog mad. That and choosing to leave the Doctor behind just to try to save more of his soldiers. From his 80 soldiers, at least 20 had died in the spot and from the 60 he had managed to escape with, they all had been ambushed and killed, one by one or in small groups, while running up the mountain. Only 2 of them had made it... but seemed that soon there were only be Herzog and Fritz.<em>

_'...Sascha...? Sascha? Sascha?...', the young soldier continued, kneeling in front of the other soldier. Herzog was standing at a certain distance, trying to think, trying to figure out how to leave that cave and get Sascha safely to a hospital. He watched the two soldiers, and right when he was about to shout at Fritz and tell him to shut up, the young soldier went silent._

_And the Standartenführer found out the silence was unbearable, because that meant Sascha didn't make it. He sighed and tried to get mentally ready for what was coming, but the sound of Fritz's sobbing was even worse than his pleading. He rubbed his face, forcing himself to come up with a solution._

_Well... first he had to take Fritz out of that cave. Maybe they could make it somewhere safer, he wasn't sure if the locals wouldn't search for them up there too. He sighed, trying to recompose himself, and walked towards Fritz:_

_'We have to move on.', he ordered. But the soldier didn't move, crying over Sascha's dead body. Herzog wasn't really in the mood. 'Stehen auf!' (Stand up!)_

_Fritz didn't stand up, instead he reached out for his pistol and held it with a trembling hand. For a second the Standartenführer thought the young soldier was going to shoot him, but then he widened his eyes:_

_'Don't-', but it was too late, and Fritz shot himself in the heart. -'do that...'_

_Herzog had to fight back the urge of falling to his knees and puke. Trying to breath calmly, he walked outside and looked around with his binoculars; no one in sight. He then brought the two corpses outside and dig one big grave with his own hands:_

_'I'm sorry I couldn't make you an officer...', he whispered, closing Sascha's shineless blue eyes. 'I'm sorry you had to die slowly and painfully with a hole in your throat, because I was too selfish to let you go.', he bit his lip, adding more blood to the already bloody mess that was his lower jaw. 'And I'm sorry... about Fritz... couldn't take care of him.'_

_He bit his hand this time, vision blurred with tears, as he used his other hand to close Fritz's brown eyes; his face was still marked by the tears:_

_'And I'm sorry I let Sascha die... and let you die too.', his voice broke and he clenched his jaw, using both hands to cover the bodies with the thick snow he had removed to open that grave. When Herzog found himself alone in the top of the snowy, freezing mountain, he let out an inhuman scream and cried his eyes out, grief and anger and pain and hate and humiliation and despair. A violent snowstorm descended upon him and he yelled to the wind that he would not leave this world without making those locals suffer, because they haven't suffered enough, and that he would haunt them and the future generations until the end of times, that he would avenge his men._

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><p>Herzog jolted and nearly fell off the field bed. He stood up quickly, picked up his officer cap from the ground and smoothed his trench coat nervously. He noticed his hands were shaking.<p>

He threw his head back; that was why he wasn't very keen on pretending to sleep, his mind was still a tricky, sneaky bastard that seemed to have a life of its own and think he hadn't had enough.

Herzog shook his head; that was past, and he couldn't dwell there nor waste time thinking about 'if's. He had more men to find right now. He shook his head again and walked outside.

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><p><strong>Weeeeee, review?<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the review! \m/ò3ó

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><p>As Agnes exited the house she promptly bumped into something big, stiff and that smelled to death. She gave a step back and looked up:<p>

'Am I late?', she asked. Herzog shook his head:

'I'm just impatient. Old, grumpy and impatient.', the Standartenführer replayed with a little smirk. 'And I was tryig to break into your house, but you opened the door before I could see if I still have that talent to unlock things with a knife.'

'I'm sure you can.', Agnes said with a nervous smile and locked the door; what was the creepiest, working for a zombie, having a sentimental talk with another zombie or having the first zombie breaking into her house using a knife?

They moved to the first place, Herzog leading the way and Agnes trying to keep up with his large strides, something her backbag didn't help with. The Standartenführer was decided to make her understand he was the interesting one, but he also wasn't sure of how to start a proper conversation and lead it; demanding to be told about the Holy Grail without making some educated conversation first seemed rude, but the educated conversation seemed boring. Maybe he should let her initiate a conversation, but she was just a young civilian lady who appeared to know how to respect a man in uniform. He cleared his throat with a growling sound:

'Tell me about the Grail.', he could ask about her health later. Much for his pleasure, she smiled widely and her eyes seemed shinier, but what she said next wasn't exactly what he expected to hear; it wasn't only depressing, it was confusing! And she was talking faster and faster and her Norwegian accent sometimes made the German words difficult to understand. He decided he needed a conclusion as soon as possible. 'Resuming...', he cut her off, and she shut up and her smile died, and Herzog actually felt bad about that. '... the Grail is not a magical object I could use to recover the glory of the old days and defeat the enemy?'

'No one knows exactly.'

'And Thor's hammer?'

'Only Thor can handle Mjölnir.'

'And the Heilige Lanze?' (Holy Lance)

'Museum in Austria.'

Herzog grumbled under his breath and started to question himself; what use of an archaeologist if she couldn't get him the powerful stuff? Much to his surprise, she seemed to read his mind and answered:

'An archaeologist is not a propaganda tool anymore... or shouldn't be. The world changed a lot since you... died. The Grail, Mjölnir and the Lance are just nice miths to tell someone, according to the exact science. People don't care about History or tradition anymore, and now archaeologists are more focused on knowing how the economy and society of the ancient people worked without looking at the symbolics.', her voice was cold, sharp, and Herzog said nothing for a while, thinking in a way of getting rid off that situation; embarassing because he had surely looked like a credulous fool instead of the confident leader he was, and uncomfortable because he had made her wary when he wanted her to be more at ease with him:

'You are useful.', and he snarled, angry with himself; not good enough. 'I don't need magical objects, I have power myself.', _I am__... how did Sascha say...? An arrogant bastard!. _He shook his head and tried again. 'What I'm trying to say, Fräulein Agnes, is that I admire your work and your capacity of discovering traits of civilization from the dirt, and that in spite of not being a tool you are extremely usef-', he paused suddenly and concluded he needed a word prettier than «useful». '... helpful to me and I am glad we have met.'

There, brilliant! He looked over his shoulder with a grin, but her frown wiped the grin away from his face. He looked down, to the snow, and wished he had just shut his mouth instead of making a fool of himself. But then she laughed, loudly and happily, and he grinned again:

'Nevermind.', she said with a smile. 'You don't have to call me «Fräulein».', and Herzog looked at her, and for brief seconds their eyes met before he looked away again. 'Do you want me to tell you what happened in the meantime, Herr Standartenführer?'

'Hein.', he replayed. 'Call me Hein when my soldiers aren't around. And yes, I want to know what happened.'

And she told him, and as she spoke she noted how bitter his grin became, until it slowly became a loathsome grimace. When she was over they spent a long time in silence and Agnes took the chance to look around and admire the landscape. They were already on the top of the snowy mountain, heading north, and despite the sun the breeze was icy and the snow deeper, thicker and colder, reaching Agnes knees and making it even more difficult for her to move. On the contrary, Herzog moved with the agility that someone as big as him shouldn't have. She let out a sigh and he looked over his shoulder, to her:

'Tired?', he asked, and she couldn't tell if he was concerned or just mocking her. He slowed down nonetheless, and they walked side by side:

'Not really.', she answered. It wasn't exactly true, but she didn't want to be considered weak by Herzog and herself, so she just smiled and appointed the snow. 'But my legs aren't exactly designed to cross snowy mountains.'

That statement made Herzog look at her with a renewed interest; she appeared to be 'pure' due to her fair skin, the delicate face and the dark-copper hair, and she would be perfect if her eyes were blue and not hazel, and if she was taller. The top of her head barely reached Herzog's chest. Now that he looked carefully, there were some strange marks on her right eyebrow, like two tiny holes, and her long hair, braided gracefully over her shoulder, revealed one of her ears, also full of those strange marks. He felt curious and wanted to ask what were those, but he had been fool enough for a day, so he decided to stay quiet.

Again, she seemed to read his mind. Or maybe he just forgot to stop looking:

'I usually have piercings, but I don't use them at work.', she explained. He frowned. 'Piercings are these little perfurations you make to use an ornament. A metal ornament.' Herzog frowned even more and narrowed his eyes. She rolled her eyes. 'Jewellery...', and the Standartenführer just shrugged; women... Agnes decided to add some more information. 'I have tattoos, too. Arms and neck.'

Now Herzog was officially curious and looked closely at her scarf and sleeves, maybe expecting to see something underneath. None of them spoke for a while, until Agnes removed from her shoulder one strap of the backbag and slipped her hand into it, looking for something:

'Why is that so big? And why do you always carry a shovel?', Herzog asked without realizing he was doing such; now that he started talking, it was quite difficult to stop. Maybe that was how Saschas were born! Maybe Sascha was a quiet child who accidentaly began a conversation and turned into an abnormally talkative young man...

She offered him a smile as she finally reached one of her sandwiches and the bottle of water:

'A shovel is an archaeologist's best friend. After a GPR, of course.' Herzog let out a small, suffering sigh; he needed to ask about that GPR thing. 'I brought some food because I eat a lot, my bottle of water, phone, maps, wallet with documents, notebook, pencil case, ropes, measuring tape and GPS.', she listed animatedly. Herzog rolled his eyes; women and their bags... 'And I always carry a knife on my belt and, of course, some lip balm.'

Herzog rolled his eyes again, because women...:

'What is a GPR? And a GPS?', he asked. 'And why so many things?'

She took a bite of her sandwich and the Standartenführer thought it would be educated to stop and let her eat, even though that would delay him and his glorious plans for victory; but nevermind, he had an eternity. So they stopped and sat on the snow, Agnes talking happily about the utility of the stuff she had in her bag and explaining him what were a GPR and a GPS. Herzog listened carefully, looking around sometimes to be sure none of his soldiers would show up and ruin the moment, because he was actually enjoying having someone to talk to, especially because that someone talked back.

He really missed that, being able to have a decent chat with one of his subordinates. And he had this little advantage of Agnes not knowing exactly who he was, because he wasn't stupid and wasn't going to tell her, so at her eyes he would be just a good, great and powerful leader of men and appraiser of archaeological work. Still, he scratched his chin and narrowed his eyes a little; maybe he shouldn't leave Sascha, or anyone else, around her... they were dumb, but they were still able to comunicate. He didn't want that:

'And how did you end up here?', she suddenly asked as they stood up. Herzog nearly lost his balance again. 'Sascha told me some peasents rebelled.'

'Exactly.', he answered dryly, remembering why he wasn't much of a talker; he liked to know and ask... but he didn't like to be asked. Agnes noticed the tone of his voice and decided not to insist in the subject.

They moved again and Herzog was back to his usual quiet and gloomy mood and large strides. Agnes tried to keep up again but she started to limp. Herzog heard her curse and glanced behind, raising an eyebrow:

'Bad knee...', she explained with a sad smile. Herzog rose both eyebrows. 'I got injured. I used to practice some martial arts...'

'I practiced fencing!', Herzog exclaimed, interested again. 'And wrestling. What did you practice?'

'Systema and Sambo.', her smile became brighter but Herzog went deadpan. She chuckled. 'Russian martial arts. Useful, good and tough.'

'Why Russian?', Herzog asked, aggrieved. She shrugged:

'That's what they taught to my brother, so I learned that too.'

'Why didn't they teach your brother something non-Russian?', and Herzog went on an endless rambling about Slavs and didn't miss the first place because Agnes pulled his sleeve and told him they had arrived.

She put her backbag on the ground and prepared to delimitate the excavation area with the ropes, but Herzog chuckled and patted her head:

'No Agnes... you just need to watch.', he assured. Agnes wanted to reply with the immportance of the archaeological context and stratigraphy, but he turned his back at her and punched the snow violently. She gaped as she watched the snow crack with a strange blue light, followed by a moment of silence. Then 20 men rose from under the snow and she hid behind Herzog, her eyes wide:

'Holy fuck, you're a necromancer!', she whispered. 'My life feels so cool right now!'

The Standartenführer just grinned, pleased with the devotion on her voice and amused with that little head peeking from behind him. He took a look at his new troops; 20 Wehrmacht soldiers, just privates. They all had guns and grenades, but they probably didn't work anymore. 5 of them had a snow camo and he couldn't see any deadly wounds on them, so maybe they got lost over there. He looked behind, to Agnes, and decided to make use of his archaeologist:

'Not dead in combat, right? What happened to them?', he asked. Slowly, Agnes came to stand beside him:

'Wehrmacht... they probably got lost for some reason. They are armed, maybe they were patrolling... or following someone, I don't know.', she looked at him, eyes shiny with excitement. 'They're archaeological artefacts, can I ask them?'

Herzog nodded; they looked dumb, Agnes wouldn't find out much. He turned around and walked away, to the next place, and everyone followed him. While walking, Agnes' words echoed in his head; _archaeological artefacts_... did she consider him an object too? A study subject only useful to give her information?

That hurt. But considering he just wanted her archaeological expertise, seemed fair enough. Didn't it?

* * *

><p>By the end of the day Herzog had more 30 men; 20 Wehrmacht soldiers and 10 men from various SS divisions, including a «Panzerless» Panzer crew member with an eye-patch, who seemed utterly sad by realising both his crew and Panzer were not among Herzog's new forces:<p>

'We were on the road near the mountain's base and an avalanche caught us, my guys and our tank got stuck. I left to look for help.', he told Agnes and kicked some snow. 'I got lost in this bloody place!'

'There's a Tiger tank in a local museum!', Agnes exclaimed. The only eye of the SS zombie shone with hope while Herzog's, who was listening carefully while he was pretending to count his troops, shone with interest:

'Where is that museum?', the Standartenführer asked:

'We'll be there by tomorrow morning if we keep walking. Just head north.', Agnes answered. Herzog turned around to look at the indicated direction; down the mountain, across some valleys with a few woods... he knew that place... it leaded to the little village.

Just perfect.

The Standartenführer let out a roar that echoed through the mountain. Few minutes later, his 80 men, his Einsatzgruppe, was reunited with the new 30 soldiers; now that was something!

'Vorwärts marsch!' (Forward!), he ordered.

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><p><strong>Weeeeeeee, review?<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the reviews! *manly tear*

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><p>Agnes decided to spare the sandwich and had a cereal bar as dinner instead. She had intented to join Sascha and Fritz, marching just 4 lines behind her, but Herzog had made it clear he wanted her right beside him. And since he seemed too absorbed in thoughts to talk, she decided to think too and focused on what the cavalry soldier said; he had escaped... but if he had escaped, so maybe the others did it too, but later. She looked behind, the zombie was right there:<p>

'Hey, where were you when your tank was caught by the avalanche?', she asked. Herzog interrupted his day-dreams of glory to listen carefully:

'I was sitting on the turret, my guys didn't want me to smoke inside.', the soldier replayed, after thinking for a while:

'Was the hatch closed?'

'Ja...'

'How thick was the layer of snow?'

'Quite a lot, it pushed me a few meters away and the tank was completely buried. It was a Tiger I, young lady...', the soldier added a little dryly; women are not supposed to know about tanks, are they? The gloved back of Herzog's hand hit him in the face:

'Fräulein Agnes is an archaeologist, if there's someone who knows about buried things, that's her.', the Standartenführer said. Then he glanced behind, threatingly. 'Respect her.'

It was too cold, otherwise Agnes would have blushed; she was used to defend herself, not to others defending her. The only eye of the soldier moved towards her and he seemed to pout. Agnes shrugged:

'They could have escaped. Even if the layer was thick the hatch could be open. Or even the shock wave of a shot could have helped, but wasting ammo like that seems idiot. Did you even try to dig them out?'

'Nein!', the zombie hissed, irritated. 'In a moment my tank and my boys were there, and in the other there was just freaking snow! I ran to get them help, what if someone showed up and noticed what I was doing, they'd shoot me and my guys! This way only I would be shot if some malicious peasent appeared!'

Agnes chuckled with the last part:

'But what was a tank doing alone here?', she asked. 'I can't recall any tank battles in this place.'

'We were supposed to be a reinforcement.', the zombie told, slipping his hands in his pockets. The slope was steep and the snow was even deeper than before. Agnes let out a sigh as it reached her thighs, but at least she wasn't limping anymore. 'There was an Einsatzgruppe all alone here, I hope they made it.'

'No, we didn't...', Herzog grumbled angrily and the tank crew member widened his eye. 'I should kill you again!'

'But it was the avalanche, Herr Standartenführer!', the zombie replayed sadly. Herzog stopped suddenly, turned around and grabbed him by the collar of his uniform:

'Who was your commander?', he asked in a whisper. Agnes looked at them both, confused:

'SS-Rottenführer Bergen, Herr Standartenführer.' (Corporal Bergen, sir.), the one-eyed zombie replayed immediatly. Herzog narrowed his eyes, until he shrugged and let go the other. He turned around and started walking again; don't waste time with 'ifs'...

They marched as silently as they could. To Agnes, the sound of low growls and noisy breathing made her think about a gigantic cat purring happily. That story about the tank had made her curious, so curious she even forgot to feel sleepy, or tired, or hungry, or cold; she was sure the tank at the museum had been recovered nearby... in fact, everything in that museum had been recovered in that area, it was everything from that district. So if the tank was there, the crew had to be too. She started to bite her lower lip, thinking; WWII was one of her favourite subjects, she had made sure she knew every single place related to that subject in Norway. She revised every German graveyard she had visited, and she was sure there wasn't any cavalry soldier buried there:

'Come on, this place is not that big! They have to be somewhere!', she mumbled in Norwegian. Herzog looked at her:

'Wie bitte?' (I beg your pardon?), he asked. Agnes shook her head:

'Just thinking...', she replayed, switching to German. Herzog made a face; he knew she was thinking, that was obvious! He wanted to know what she was thinking about... And for the third time that day, and the second time he forgot to stop looking, she seemed to read his mind. 'This is a small district with small villages... It's just a place of fishermen... Everything that's in the museum is local, including the tank. So the crew must be somewhere here, too!'

She sounded resentful, but Herzog couldn't tell why. Maybe she was just frustrated about the missing crew... When he was about to tell her to not worry about that and that she had already made an excellent job, she asked the one-eyed soldier something else:

'That road down there?', and she appointed the road in the base of the mountains, that no one could see because it was too dark but that everyone knew it was there, because they all knew the area. The soldier nodded and she went quiet again, thinking.

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><p>The layer of snow was now shorter and not so thick, so Agnes supposed they were almost in the valley. She couldn't see anyhing in front of her and Herzog surely wouldn't want her to use her flashlight, so she trusted the man... dead man... beside her to guide her, because he seemed to be able to see at least where to put his feet and Agnes used the sound of his steady pace to guide herself. That and the feeling of having a wall of bricks right next to her. Or a fridge with an open door, because damn!, Herzog was colder than the air and the snow around her. This leaded her to put the Tiger I and its crew aside for a while and wonder on a few things she didn't know yet:<p>

-did they know they were dead? Sascha knew for sure, but the tank lad seemed someone who had just waken up from a nap...

-if they knew they were dead, were they self-conscious of how they looked, how they smelled...?

-and if they were self-conscious about that, were they okay with that? Where they all like Herzog, dead and powerful and perfectly aware of his power?

-and come on, how did Herzog become a necromancer in the first place? And did he «necromanced» himself?

-Sascha and Fritz weren't happy at all, were they all like that? And if they weren't, why not running away, or suiciding, or rebelling, or something like that?

-did the guy with the stick coming out of one of his eye knew he had a stick instead of an eye? Did he like the stick? Did he use it like a weapon?

Then she felt asphalt under her mountain trainers and the thoughts about the tank and its crew came back to her mind:

'Hein...', she called and stopped, just to shake her head quickly. 'I mean, Herr Standartenführer! Can I ask you something?'

Herzog was still dealing with the fact of being called by his first name after all that time. He took a while to nod and felt stupid:

'Ja...', he said.

'Can you do that... that thing you do... in the snow... I would like to be sure of something.'

The Standartenführer just blinked his eyes, slowly, then he told his men to wait a little and walked back to the snowy base of the mountain, followed by Agnes. He punched the snow and it cracked, the blue light filling the darkness for brief seconds. There was silence and nothing happened.

When the young woman was about to sigh disappointedly, a hand emerged from the ground and grabbed her ankle painfully. She was not the kind of going hysterical and screaming, so she cursed exactly as her brother and his comrades had taught her and lost her ballance. Yet Herzog caught her by the arm, quite painfully, but still stopping her from falling.

The hand let go her ankle and there was the sound of something emerging from the ground. More than one thing emerging from the gound, in fact:

'Was ist los?' (What's happening?), a voice asked:

'Herr Rottenführer?' (Corporal, sir?), this was the one-eyed zombie:

'Michael, mein kleiner Idiot!' (Michael, my little idiot!), followed by the sound of steps and bodies hugging. The rest of the troops decided it was a good moment to chat. Agnes, whose arm was still under Herzog's firm grip, removed her flashlight from the backbag and switched it on:

'Ach, meine Augen!' (Ouch, my eyes!), Sascha yelped,squeezing his eyes shut. 'Damn it, right into my eyes, if you can do that with a flashlight I'm not giving you a rifle!'

'Sorry...', the archaeologist mumbled and appointed the flashlight to the noisy tank crew; they were 3 at all... one was still missing, they had to be at least 4... or 5. One of the crew members, surely the Rottenführer, offered his own Iron Cross 2nd Class to Michael. _Sweet, _she thought with a smile.

She turned the light at Herzog. His face showed no emotion and he was standing like he was watching something absolutely normal. However, Agnes didn't miss the look he and Sascha exchanged, and for the first time since she had met him, Sascha looked sad and angry:

'Vorwärts marsch!' (Forwards!), Herzog finally commanded, calmly. 'And you turn that light off, they are indiscreet enough.'

Agnes obeyed quietly and she had the feeling the Standartenführer was disturbed by something, but she had already understood he didn't like to be asked things.

And so they walked for the whole night, because that just couldn't be considered marching. The Einsatzgruppe wanted to know better their new Wehrmacht and other SS comrades and the Panzer crew seemed a group of giggling teenage girls. Agnes was starting to feel uncomfortable with the sudden bad vibes coming from the Standartenführer beside her and she was sure that sooner or later she'd go face first into a tree:

'How did you know they were there?', Herzog asked in a low growl, breaking the silence between them and actually easing the mood:

'It was a lucky guess... and an archaologist's 6th sense, too.', she smiled and yawned, starting to actually feel tired. 'Can you see in the dark?'

'Nein.'

'None of your men can?'

'Nein.'

'So we all can walk face first into a tree?', and she heard him chuckle, because she couldn't see him, only the occasional shine of his eyes and a dark figure that somehow managed to be darker than the darkness surrounding them:

'That surelly won't happen to me.', Herzog assured. 'Even though I can't see anything, I feel. I can feel your presence and that big pine that I avoided by lowering my head, just like all the things that surround me.'

'How?', and the wonder he heard in her voice made him smile. A real smile, not one of his usual grins. One of his soldiers cursed, someone who was too entertained chatting to see where to go. Herzog shrugged and kicked a stone out of Agnes' way:

'I just feel. It's complicated.', he finally answered.

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><p>At dawn the museum was visible in the horizon. Agnes was feeling exhausted.<p>

They came to a halt at the base of the small hill where the museum was built:

'Fast and efficient, will you?', Herzog asked, even though it sounded like an order. His troops nodded and Herzog tilted his head to one side. With a roar, his troops ran up the hill. The Standartenführer followed them calmly and Agnes had no other option than going after him.

Her yawn turned into a horrified gape as she reached the top of the hill: tourists running, zombies running after tourists, tourists not making it, gore fest. The tank crew was using someone's intestines to steal gasoline from one of the tourists' bus:

'What the fuck am I watching...?', she muttered under her breath, frowning. Herzog seemed to forget about her and walked into the museum, but she approached the Tiger I, where Michael was standing like a normal citizen would do when filling the car's deposit. 'Does it even work?'

'If it doesn't, we steal the bus' engine!', the one eyed-zombie replayed enthusiastically. One of the Wehrmacht zombies chased a tourist next to them and Agnes hid behind Michael when the blood spilled from the tourists' open chest. The rest of the crew joined them and one of the soldiers frowned at the archaeologist:

'You're not a soldier.', he stated:

'I'm an archaeologist...', she replayed. Michael smiled animatedly:

'She knew where you were!', he exclaimed. 'She told Herr Standertenführer where to find you!'

'Were you only 3?', Agnes asked, examining them quickly; their... hmm... conservation state was almost as good as the other's. The Rottenführer nodded. 'Why?'

'Dead.'

'In the spot?'

'No, taken prisioners.', the Rottenführer shrugged. 'Lets see if it still works. Have you ever been inside a Tiger, Fräulein?'

'Not a Tiger, but... I'm not very found of tanks. No offense.', she smiled nervously. 'Quite... claustrophobic.'

The crew members shrugged and climbed the tank. Agnes decided to look for Sascha and Fritz, and she found them helping the soldier with the stick coming from his eye to get his stick off a dead body:

'Hi.', she saluted with a smile. Sascha looked at her and smiled too:

'Look Fritz, Herzog didn't kill her of boredom!', and Fritz interrupted the rescuing operation to clap enthusiastically. 'This is Dietrich and his... sticky friend, by the way...', and Sascha laughed of his own joke:

'Why do you have that stick in there?', Agnes asked Dietrich, the one Sascha said had stopped in time at the age of 5. Dietrich, finally free from the body, looked shyly at her:

'I like the stick. It's a good stick, he listens to me.'

Agnes just nodded, not knowing exactly what to do. Dietrich walked away and Sascha chuckled:

'Told you...', he said, wiping the blood on his hands to his uniform. 'So you survided Herzog, the Beyond Boring? That's new, teach me how to do that!'

'He's not that bad...', Agnes replayed and yawned again:

'Let's tell everybody she likes him!', Fritz suggested and they both turned their backs at her. She widened her eyes and held them by the back of their jackets:

'Are you mad? No you won't!', she hissed worriedly. They glanced behind. 'Not those shit-eating grins... no... Come on, I thought we were comrades! Sascha, you lied to me!'

'Did you hear that, Fritz? She didn't say anything about not liking him!'

'I did hear that, Sascha! Oh look, she's blushing!', both soldiers laughed. 'Don't worry Acne, we just wanted you to wake up.', Agnes just let out an incoherent grumble and walked away. Or better limped; her knee decided it was time for some sharp pain, right in the place where the kneecap articulated with the femur.

Meanwhile the tank zombies had managed to make it work and it was now gloriously parked right in the middle of the parking lot.

Herzog came out of the building, followed by some of his men that carried fire-arms and grenades. Agnes let out a sigh:

'Are those working?', she asked one of the zombies. He positioned the rifle, aimed a dead tourist and pressed the trigger; nothing happened:

'No ammo...', he growled sadly.

The Standartenführer looked at the tank, a pleased smirk stamped on his face. He then looked around to gather his troops and noticed Agnes was limping again. He frowned and walked towards her:

'Panzer. Jetzt.' (Tank. Now), he ordered. She widened her eyes:

'I can walk!'

'You're limping again; that will delay me and probably bother you.'

Agnes looked from the Standartenführer to the tank. Then, by the corner of her eye, she caught Sascha and Fritz trying to contain their laughter. She let out another sigh:

'I can go outside the tank... right?', she asked hopefully. Herzog's expression softened and he nodded. Feeling relieved, she climbed to the tank, sat beside the driver's hatch and wrapped an arm around the tank gun. Herzog climbed after her, installed himself in the hatch and looked down. 2 and a half pairs of eyes were looking at him. He nodded and the tank began to move.

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><p><strong>Weeeeeeeeeeeeee, review? <strong>


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the reviews! *manly, but really manly tear* I could never imagine people would love this story so much!

**Sascha**: They don't love your story... THEY LOVE MEEEEE! MEEE! :D

**Fritz: **And me! :3

**Author: **._.

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><p>Herzog loved the power of tanks and the fact that now he was being transported like a real commander. The valley had plenty of trees and undergrowth, but nothing that stopped the mighty Tiger I. He looked around, satisfied; his troops were running beside and after the tank, tireless, such were the benefits of not needing to breathe for real and not having a beating heart. The crew was finally quiet, seemed they were competent afterall. He then looked at Agnes... well... Agnes' back; she didn't seem to bother with all the bouncing and the branches around her, her backbag was hanging in a shoulder and she was munching another cereal bar. There were some leaves on her hair and he allowed himself to smile.<p>

Then his smile died and he frowned; he was not supposed to smile, because smiling is for fools, and he was not a fool, and damn it guts, stop making him feel warm inside!

Sascha and Fritz were right after the tank. Fritz peeked from behind the huge armoured vehicle and studied Herzog for a while:

'I think he's smiling... I can't see very well, but I'm not risking going closer and being noticed! Aw, he's not smiling anymore.', he whispered to Sascha. 'Stupid helmet, I can't see much with it, hold it for me for a second.'

'And so?'

'Meh, whatever he was thinking about is gone...', Fritz covered his head with the helmet again. Running beside him, Sascha frowned:

'What do you think he's going to do to our little Acney?', he asked. Fritz shrugged:

'I have no idea.', he then looked behind, to the Doctor, the last and slower of them all. 'I hope she stays around... it's kind of... livener!', he said. A moment of silence. Then they both laughed loudly of Fritz's pun.

The sound of their laughter reached Herzog's ears; he knew it had to be Sascha and Fritz, and he also knew they had to be laughing of him or of something related to him, because that was how the world functioned. Agnes heard them too and she felt herself blush; they had to be joking about that subject again, and she munched her last bite of the cereal bar angrily, all levels of awkwardness taken to the infinite and beyond because she actually liked Herzog, now that she knew him a little. She liked him like she liked Sascha and Fritz, with the difference that Herzog would never give her a headache because of childish behaviour.

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><p>It had to be around lunch time, because her stomach was more punctual than a Swiss watch, but she thought it would be better to spare that sandwich for another time. There was a small village ahead, the few houses now visible among the trees, and the tank came to a halt:<p>

'Get in here, Fräulein.', Herzog demanded, looking into his binoculars. Agnes looked from him to the village, and to him again. She gulped, not really wanting to get into the tank. Her knee was still aching, though... Well, it would be quick, right? Blitzkrieg and all.

With a relutant sigh, she stood up and climbed to the turret:

'Aber schnell!' (But quick!), Herzog grumbled, disappearing into the tank. Agnes let out a suffering sigh and followed him. She had only been inside a modern tank was a little relieved when she found out the interior of that tank wasn't so claustrophobic and that she could even sit, because with her and Herzog the crew was finally 5. Michael glanced behind and offered her a smile:

'Changed your mind?', he asked. The tank began to move. Agnes started drumming with her fingers on her legs, nervously. Herzog was looking into the periscope and from that angle Agnes had the chance to avaliate the damage that had been done to his face; seemed something had hit him on his face, tearing off skin from his nostril, a small part of his upper lip and nearly half of his lower lip (or maybe it had actually torn off his face his whole lower lip, because the remaining half was stitched, poor man!). She wondered how and when he had gotten that, and the scar crossing his eye too, even though both wounds seemed fresh.

She looked away, to Michael's head, and noticed the short blond hair under his side cap:

'No...', she finally answered. She looked around, but there were only zombies and machinery. Chewing her tongue seemed like a great idea to relieve stress. The gunner and Herzog exchanged posts, the Standartenführer sat right next to Agnes and he offered her a reproachful look:

'I had that habit too.', he told. 'Then one day I nearly bit my tongue off and understood it was a really bad habit.'

Agnes stopped in the same instant and the very little that was rest of his lips curved into a smile; there he was, smiling like a fool again!:

'It was during my Officer Course, I had to skydive and I was so nervous I chewed my tongue all the way down... and then bit it really hard when I hit the ground, because I was never a skilled parachutist.', he then frowned. 'Never did it again, won't ever do it again.'

The young woman just smiled widely. She felt like sharing something too, but the tank stopped and the gunner said they were exactly in the middle of the village and that the infantry was invading the houses. Herzog opened one of the hatches and admired the show, like someone would admire the landscape from a balcony. The gunner opened the other hatch and Agnes decided it was time for some fresh air. She managed to climb out of the tank, then jumped carefully from the turret to the glacis plate and finally to the ground.

Another gore fest. She stepped aside when the tank began to more again, just for the sake of smashing a woman who had been thrown from a window. Everywhere she looked there were undead Wehrmacht or SS soldiers killing those people. Her people, by the way, because she was a local too. Agnes moved towards a dead body; that one had been stabbed, the SS troops used their daggers and the Werhmacht troops used their rifles as maces. The blood formed a small puddle around the body. Norwegian blood, spilled once more by the German enemy, German invading troops.

And Agnes grinned sadly, because she couldn't care less about those people; she wasn't very fond of the living.

Someone placed a hand on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin:

'Do you want to try?', Sascha asked. 'Aim to the guts! It sucks when your weapon is stuck in the bones of the guy you're killing.'

'No thanks... I just watch.', she replayed, turning around to face him. 'Are those... hmm...', Sascha had something that resembled spaghetti in the corner of his mouth:

'Tendons? Yes!'

'I don't want to know...'

'The guy tried to strangulate me, I had to defend myself...'

'I see.', and she made a face when Sascha sucked the tendons, like it was in fact spaghetti. 'Do you need to eat?'

'No, but I like to chew.', Fritz answered, coming from behind. 'And this stuff gets stuck in my stomach and makes a funny noise when I move.'

'You're going to disgust her, then she'll spend more time with Herzog the Beyond Boring than with us!', Sascha exclaimed with an exaggerated pout:

'You're disgusting her too!', the other soldier replayed. Then they both looked at her and asked in unison. 'How was the tank ride?'

'Claustrophobic.', Agnes sighed and looked around curiously. 'Why is everybody gathering the bodies?'

'Exactly, why is everybody but the two of you gathering the bodies?', Herzog asked from the top of the tank, that stopped next to them. He jumped directly from the turret to the ground and Sascha and Fritz decided it was indeed a good idea to help the others:

'Protective Mode: activated.', Sascha whispered and they both giggled while walking away.

Agnes looked at the Standartenführer curiously:

'Why are they gathering the bodies?', she asked. Herzog grinned:

'I like to have... hm... "volunteers" among my troops.', he explained. She just nodded and looked around; the small village had 30 inhabitants who were now all dead. The Standartenführer looked around too and let out a grunt. 'Does it bother you?'

'The dead?'

'They are your people.'

'I...', she hesitated; telling Sascha she didn't like the living was a confession from a weird person to another weird person, and weird people would never think each other weird... but on the other hand, telling that to Herzog, who she believed was the only 100% sane man in the company, would be weird, because he would think her weird, and she didn't want him to know she was actually (maybe) the weirdest of them all. '... guess life is unfair.'

'Wise words, Fräulein.', Herzog agreed, completely unaware of her little hesitation. He made a face when his eyes spotted the Doctor dragging a body; _"She needs food, and water, and warmth. You can't give her that!"_, his words echoed in Herzog's mind and he looked at Agnes again. She looked at him too, and they spent an awkward moment just staring, until the Standartenführer broke the eye-contact and cleared his throat with a gutural sound. 'You should get yourself food and water.'

'Wise words, Herr Standartenführer.', she replayed with a smile and walked away into a house. The same house where Fritz and Sascha had gone to pick up dead villagers:

'We saw everything from the window, it was a blast of feels.', Sascha said when they met at the door. 'So much feels I had to puke, don't go upstairs.'

'Do I know you, mister?', Agnes did him the finger and got in the house, keeping in mind to don't touch anything, just the food she was going to take.

She went outside right on time to watch Herzog select his "volunteers", and it made her ever more curious about him that before.

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><p>This time she was sitting on the turret, next to Herzog's hatch, but facing his troops that followed the tank and having an intense gestual conversation with Sascha and Fritz that became really ridiculous when all the Nazi zombies decided to have a gestual conversation too, and now it was just a bunch of arms waving in the air. The "volunteer" troops were quiet, following obediently.<p>

Watching Agnes by the corner of his eye, Herzog didn't really wanted to know what was going on his back. But she seemed enthusiastic and there was an occasional chuckle from her or from one of his men, so the Standartenführer decided to let them be.

Then the strangest of creatures crossed paths with Herzog's mighty Tiger I. The Standartenführer frowned, told the crew to stop the tank and raised a closed fist to stop his troops. Everything went silent, Agens turned around and Herzog tried to find out if he was facing a manly woman or an effeminate man. It was difficult to tell and he was about to use his binoculars to have a better look on the strange creature when it spoke some nonsense, but then Herzog finally understood he was facing an effeminate man.

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, he had three good resons to kill that peasent:

-he was standing on his way!

-he was a local.

-he was clearly an Untermensch (sub-human) and a threat to the superior race.

He sighed:

'This is why I have "volunteers"...', he told Agnes and turned around. 'You!', he looked at his "volunteers". "Go."

And they went after the parasite of the Reich. But the Reich was no more, but that creature was still a parasite and Herzog thought it would be a really good idea to make a Reich of his own:

'He's running to the marshes.', Agnes said. The Standartenführer shrugged:

'I know there are marshes all around, that's why I sent those.', he explained. A small explosion from the mashes made Herzog roll his eyes. 'I was counting on the resistance movements too, but to be honest I was hoping no one would bother me...', he looked into his binoculars to see where the strange creature was going and expected him to reveal where the other resistence members where hidding.

Some more explosions. Agnes noticed the soldiers were starting to feel nervous and she supposed they knew an explosion would kill them for real and that not even Herzog's powers could do much for them in that situation. Then, still looking into his binoculars, Herzog shouted a counterclockwise coordinate and the turret moved, slowly.

The young woman tightened her grip around the hold of the closed hatch near Herzog's, almost at the same time the tank shot the first projectile. However, much for Herzog's displeasure, the creature was still running! He shouted more coordinates and the turret moved again.

Finally, the creature joined 2 young women. Herzog grinned; now he was going to finish them! He gave a last coordinate to the tank and he was sure that this time the projectile hadn't been wasted like the previous:

'Vorwärts marsch!', he commanded and let the binoculars hang on his neck. He felt great; nothing like smashing the resistance, not losing a single soldier from his troops... and impress that young lady with his skills.

To be honest, and Herzog did like honesty, having Agnes around wasn't only good to lighten the mood among his troops but also to sooth the pain of his mortally wounded ego. Indeed, he needed to kill her as soon as possible. And he would probably hand over his personal chamber to her, because that seemed the right thing to do when a lady moves in to a place where there's only men.

The Rottenführer opened his hatch and tried to convince Agnes to go inside the tank again. Agnes said she was having an important gestual conversation with Dietrich about his sticky friend. The Rottenführer expressed his opinion on how ridiculous Dietrich looked with a stick in the place of his eye, to which Dietrich reacted with a childish and, according to Agnes (who believed the awkard level was now beyond the beyond infinite), adorable pout. A soldier behind Dietrich, Konrad, decided to defend his comrade, and the initially gestual conversation turned into an amount of growling arguments and grunts and snarls on the advantages of having a stick in the place of an eye:

'It's a pointy stick, by the way! He can kill with that stick!', was Konrad's favourite argument.

Sascha took the oportunity to study Herzog; he could only see the Standartenführer's back, but he knew him well enough to tell how his commander was feeling just by looking at his posture, and Sascha was sure Herzog was thinking about something pleasent, and that thing had to be Agnes, who was now telling the Rottenführer about the importance of sticks in the evolution of mankind. He smiled; the last time he had seen Herzog like that it had been in December, 1940, when they were heading back to Germany to rest from glorious acions in Poland, and the Standartenführer had told him he was planning to go back to his home village for a little while.

Sascha's smile died slowly; that was when Herzog changed from the Amazing-Officer-Everybody-Wants-To-Serve to the Regular-Son-Of-A-Bitch-Officer-Everybody-Plots-Against. But now, thanks to the archaeologist, Herzog was slowly recovering from whatever happened to him, and even though he didn't show that to his troops yet, Sascha knew it. For good and bad, he knew Herzog too well. He looked around, to the happy, chatting mess that was the Einsatzgruppe and the Wehrmacht group, and smiled again; just like the old days when the Standartenführer was the Amazing-Officer. Then he noticed the Doctor trying to give his opinion about the stick and clenched his jaw; the Doctor was useful, but nobody did really like him that much, maybe because he had joined them too late, or maybe because he was just an irritating,smart aleck little man. He also didn't like Agnes. Sascha did a note to self to keep an eye on him, just in case:

'Sascha, what's your opinion on the sticky subject?', Agnes suddenly asked. Fritz started to laugh hystericaly, sounding like a desperate, gurgling, drowning man. Sascha smiled:

'I think everybody has some good pointy arguments to throw, let's just hope this won't go from sticky to beaty.', and that only caused a flood of pro and con arguments on the advantage of having sticks instead of eyes:

'Achtung «punzer»!', Agnes managed to exclaim before bursting into laughter. The Rottenführer frowned:

'When you say «punzer» you're making a Wortspiel (pun) with English, aren't you?', he asked. Agnes nodded and the Rottenführer smiled excitedly. 'I had that same idea years ago, but nobody understood me!', he tried to calm down. 'Bergen, Klaus. SS-Rotenführer. I speak a little English.'

By the corner of his eye, Herzog saw the Rottenführer take one of Agnes' hand and kiss it on the back. That was enough to stop him from daydreaming and he turned around, looking threateningly at his troops.

It took a while until they all went silent again, all carrying the same expression of a confused and scared child. He then looked at the Rottenführer:

'You should go back to your place, Rottenführer Bergen.', he growled. Agnes looked from one to the other, confused and feeling like suddenly a big and grumpy cloud had covered the sun. Klaus looked down:

'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.', he mumbled. He offered Agnes a smile before disappearing into the tank.

And Agnes felt like the awkwardness was back. Herzog was looking to the rural road ahead, eyes shinning in the shadow the officer cap cast on his face, bad vibes coming from him again. She looked around; the SS and the Wehrmacht soldiers moved quietly, looking down or to the landscape around them. Only Sascha exchanged a look with her that said clearly «don't just stay there, do something!».

She moved from near Klaus' hatch to sit next to Herzog's, and clutched to the border of the turret nervously:

'Hein?', she called softly. A blue eye moved to look at her, and now that she was so close, that eye, so blue and intense, crossed by the scar, was quite impressing. 'We didn't mean to bother you... It was my fault, I was talking to Dietrich about his stick and-'

'-the conversation got sticky, I get it.', Herzog finished the sentence, looking at her. He then frowned, realizing what he had said, but his expression softened when she chuckled. 'It was not your fault, it's theirs; they can't hold a civilized talk for too long.', _and can't avoid touching..._, he thought angrily. He looked to the horizon again; it was getting dark. 'It's not that I don't like my men... security reasons, that's all.', he explained, because he felt the need to explain himself to that young woman. His archaeologist, had he mentioned that before?

Agnes just nodded, thinking in what Sascha had told her the first time they met, and wondered if she should ask. But she didn't want Herzog to be mad at Sascha because he told her that, and she didn't know how he would react, maybe it was a subject he didn't want to talk about, or maybe he would tell her, just like the parachute episode. He was quiet now, but was starting to look like he wanted to talk, and she noticed his grip on the border of his hatch tightened, maybe to stop himself from gesturing and talking. The bad vibes were gone, but she could imagine a little, dark cloud floating over his head.

Seemed he was a complicated character, like the archaeological artefact found in a dubious context, and Agnes loved to solve those little mysteries of life; she was complicated too, and the illogical logic rules say that complication walks hand-in-hand with complication:

'Sascha told me you were a hero.', she started. Much to her relief he laughed, but it was a sad, false laughter:

'Sascha is dumb, he doesn't know what he says. None of them knows. I can't even understand how you can understand them, but that must be some archaeologist's trick...', he replayed, sighing. Agnes felt like she should defend the guys, but it was better not to argue with Herzog. It was getting cold and she zipped her jacket. 'You should get inside and sleep. You didn't sleep last night.', even though that implied she would be in the company of Rottenführer Bergen... or maybe not, he would go with her. She made a face:

'I can sleep here, I'm an outdoor person.', she tried:

'Believe me when I tell you don't want to freeze to death...', Herzog replayed and offered her a hand. She let out a suffering sigh but took it, and the littleness of her hand on his big, gloved hand amused him. He felt the faint warmth of her hand through the leather of his glove and the skin of arm, that apparently had life of its own too, got goosebumps. Or maybe it was just his mind tricking him, because his mind was a real bastard.

He helped her to get in the tank and they sat side by side. Klaus didn't dare to look at them, but Michael turned around in his seat to look at Agnes disapprovingly:

'The Panzer joke, really?', he mumbled. Agnes offered him a smile and covered her legs with her backbag. She looked around and tried not to panick when Herzog stretched his arms and closed the hatch. He was right, she needed to sleep. So she closed her eyes, tried to forget she was inside a tank... and fell asleep almost instantly.

Herzog looked at her, then into the tank's periscope; there, he had provided her warmth, what was warmer than a glorious German tank?

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><p><strong>Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, review?<strong>


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: **thanks so much for the reviews! ;_; So, so much!

About this chapter, just one little thing: it would be a monster of a chapter if I had written everything in it... so I'll try to update the next chapter today too, but I'm not sure if I'm going to make it. XD

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><p>By the morning the German troops reached their target. The tank stopped in the outskirts of the village and the crew left the tank to stretch their legs a bit. Herzog pretended to be focused on what he was seeing through the periscope, and when they all left he turned around and looked at Agnes; she was still sleeping, and of course he was going to wake her up because she had skipped dinner and was probably hungry and he would never allow her to sleep while he triumphed gloriously over his enemies.<p>

So he woke her up like a true German gentleman; he placed a big hand over her small and delicate shoulder and shook her mercilessly:

'Wach auf!' (Wake up!), he commanded, and wondered if he had been a little rude. Agnes opened both eyes and looked around, utterly confused:

'Are we being attacked?', she asked, blinking her eyes really fast. Herzog chuckled:

'No, we are going to attack. And you are going to witness my glory. I'll leave plenty of archaeological evidences, just like those of great battles!', he said. 'And you should eat something.'

Agnes said nothing, her brain was still half-asleep. Yet she opened her backbag and picked up something to eat, and took the chance to follow Herzog outside and breath properly.

The Standartenführer jumped to the ground and walked away from the tank, all of his attention on the village. Agnes, holding her sandwich between her teeth, was much more careful to reach the ground. Rottenführer Bergen wanted to offer her help, because he was a German gentleman too, but Sascha shook his head and grinned jokingly:

'Hey Acne, what were the two of you doing all alone in there?', he asked. Agnes munched a bite of her sandwich calmly:

'The same you and Fritz do when no one's looking.', she replayed. A general 'ooooohhhh!' was heard and the company bursted into laughter. Sascha and Fritz looked at each other and their cheeks became dark blue. Fritz looked at his boots, embarassed, and Sascha narrowed his eyes and pointed a threatening index finger at Agnes:

'You don't do these jokes with Fritz, he's too innocent for that! This means war!', he exclaimed, gesturing dramatically. Rottenführer Bergen decided he wanted to help Agnes:

'Such a dubious answer!', he said. Another 'oooohhh!' was heard and Michael rolled his eye, commenting to the nearest soldier:

'Yesterday he remembered he used to try to be funny...', he explained:

'I heard that!', Rottenführer Bergen frowned. Sascha saw it was his chance to turn the game:

'He's trying to be funny to impress our little Acney, because she thinks Herzog the Beyond Boring his actually an interesting creature.'

'In fact, if a stare killed, Rottenführer Bergen would have died yesterday!', Fritz added, his cheeks still a darker shade of blue:

'You're just Sascha's sidekick, shut up!', and was the Rottenführer's turn to... hm... blush. The zombies started to argue among themselves and Agnes finished her meal in peace.

Herzog eventually turned around, carrying a helpless expression because his troops, especially his Einsatzgruppe, were behaving like they were only 18 years-old soldiers, fresh from the recruit. Again. That would give Agnes a bad impression, but she seemed glad with all that fuss and the Standartenführer's expression softened as he watched her eating peacefully. _But__ afterall, _he thought with a grimace and walked towards his troops, _seems she's already used to this childish behaviour._

He stopped in front of his troops, legs apart and hands behind his back. Dietrich noticed him and tried to quietly warn his comrades, but he was still a little clumsy; if it wasn't for his family's influence and money, he wouldn't have made it to the Waffen-SS.

Slowly the company calmed down and Herzog studied them, taking a little longer to observe Rottenführer Bergen and Sascha; the first was obviously irritated and frustrated, the second was clearly satisfied. The Standartenführer tried not to smile; Sascha was indeed an exeptional creature to teach someone else their places among the company:

'Fast and efficient, shall we?', Herzog asked. Demanded. 'Under my command. You,', he looked at Agnes. 'you'll follow and watch.'

'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!', everybody exclaimed and the troops saluted. The crew got in the tank and Herzog followed them. Agnes made her way to the rearguard and slapped Sascha's shoulder playfully:

'Achtung «punzer»!', she giggled. The blue-eyed zombie made a face:

'I think I prefer Herzog's influence on you...', he stated.

In the rearguard she found the Doctor, who looked at her like she was a freak from another planet. Agnes gave him little attention, she was used to that kind of stares. She crossed her arms and followed the zombie soldiers, secretly hopping one of the locals could manage to kill that wannabe Mengele. Then she frowned; even if that happened Herzog would revive him again, so...

The company splitted as it reached the first houses. Agnes decided to walk around randomly and went in a different direction from the column of soldiers she was following, what could possibly go wrong? Then she frowned, because all she could hear were the zombies... and no locals, no gore fest. She looked around with increased attention and decided to peek into a few houses; empty, all of them.

The village was abandoned. And that could only mean two things:

-people already knew what had happened in the museum and in the other village and had fled, terrified.

-someone knew they were coming, had evacuated the people and was hiding somewhere to finish the Nazi troops.

Agnes was a pessimist, so she chose the second option and decided to go look for Herzog and share her conclusion with him. Keeping in mind everything her brother had taught her about how to behave when you have the feeling there is a sniper, but you don't know where or if he's in fact there, she went to look for the Nazi soldiers among the houses. She moved fast and carefully, crouched, the closer she could to the wooden walls of the houses, being careful to avoid windows and suspicious corners. Then she realized there was silence, and her heart began to race in her chest; silence is not good, silence is never good!

The she heard a growl. No, several growls. Many, many loud growls, the sound of running feet and the clash of metal. And she knew she was in troubles and removed her pocket knife from her belt, where she usually hung it. She left some wooden houses behind and found herself in some sort of lawn, where the Nazi troops were fighting... Red Army soldiers?

What had Herzog said when they had met, that he had a war to win? Was his war this thing right in front of Agnes?

The young archaeologist widened her eyes and tried to figure out if she could make it safely to where the tank (and Herzog) were standing, because she was just an archaeologist, not a soldier, and right now the safest place seemed to be behind the Standartenführer. Well, Russians and Germans were busy, so she took the chance to take a deep breath and run.

And she would have made it, if someone hadn't bumped on her and sent her flying some good meters. She fell on her shoulder and rolled several times before a wall of a house finally stopped her. She felt like her brain was still rolling inside her skull and her vision was doubled. She shook her head and blinked her eyes quickly and everything came back to normal, and she could see a huge Russian zombie running towards her. Agnes left her backbag aside, stood up and, with her pocket knife in hand, prepared to fight.

The Russian soldier had a shovel and he rose it above his head. She leaned towards him and, using the side of an arm, diverted the shovel to the side, while using her other arm to stab the Russian in the stomach. He squealed and bent forwards, letting go the shovel, and Agnes grabbed it and cracked his head open with it. She removed her knife from his stomach and was about to smile proudly because, after all those years without practising, she still remembered what she had learned! But her smile died as another Russian attacked her.

And since she was an archaeologist, she took some time to look at that.. artefact... and concluded that uniform belonged to a GRU Spetsnaz and that his (and his comrade's) preservation state was worse than the Nazi's, so that meant they had been buried in lower lands, like the Panzer crew, but those lower lands surely hadn't that much permafrost. And the time she lost evaluating that surelly interesting piece out of its correct archaeological context was enough for the soldier to punch her painfully in the face, sending her again against the wall once more.

She felt her nose bridge break with an explosion of pain that brought tears to her eyes. But that somehow made her understood she had no time to look at the adversary with archaeologist's eyes, and she managed to avoid being punched again by stepping aside. The Spetsnaz opened a whole in the wooden wall and got stuck by his arm, and Agnes took the chance to try and crack his head with the shovel. However that soldier had been, still was, a Spetsnaz for some reason, he obviously wouldn't let her win so easily.

So he kicked her ribs, but she was already counting on that and, as she started to feel the pressure, she relaxed and simply stepped aside, standing next to his back, and used the shovel to break his spine and finally crack his skull open.

She turned around and managed to stab a huge hand before its fingers wrapped around her neck and defended herself while another Russian attacked her. Agnes was already tired; it had been years since the last time she had fought hand-to-hand, and back then no one had been there to hurt her, or kill her. Besides, she had never been very resistent to pain, and besides a bad knee she also had a bad shoulder and a bad ankle, and they were all bugging her in that exact moment, plus the nearly blinding pain in her nose. Finally, she managed to throw her oponent to the ground and stabbed his neck several times, severing it so much the Russian was practially decapitated.

Another soldier came, much bigger than any of the previous soldiers, and Agnes let out a suffering sigh; she was also small and not very strong, and contrary to popular belief carrying buckets of dirt and boxes of pottery didn't help much in developing strenght. The soviet soldier punched her face again, hitting her cheekbone and making her stumble over the dead bodies behind her. She fell on her back and he kicked her stomach, leaving her breathless for a while. Agnes managed to kick him in the knee, where he appeared to have been shot, and she succeeded in ruining what was still left of his knee joint and he fell to his side. She then hit his head with her heel, and if that didn't kill him would at least delay him.

She stood up, coughing, and tried to run to the tank... but the tank wasn't where it had been. Just great! So she thought about joining the Nazi troops, but that place was so chaotic that there wasn't exactly «Nazi troops», but a bunch of zombies fighting each other in complete disorganization.

Agnes lost too much time thinking... again. And when she noticed there was something moving behind her it was too late; the Russian she had kicked in the head was standing again, grabbed one of her arms and pulled it back. The young woman screamed as she felt the humerus discolate from the shoulder blade, sending a wave of pain down her arm that made her release the knife; now she'd have two bad shoulders. That Russian soldier was a particularly rancorous one, because he grabbed her knife and stabbed her knee from behind. And it had to be her bad knee.

She screamed again and fell forwad, not able to move one of arms and with the knife stuck in her knee joint. The pain was so intense that instead of crying she started to laugh nervously, her eyes wide and her vision starting to blurr; so, that was what happened to the archaeologists who decided to play Indiana Jones!, they ended up in a fight! But usually it was with someone who wanted their artefact, not with the artefact itself!

The Russian soldier grabbed the shovel she had let go in the meanwhile and hit her ribcage with it. Agnes felt something crack and all of a sudden breathing was extremely difficult and painful. She looked at the Russian, who had the shovel raised above his head and was about to give her the final blow, and her vision became darker, until she couldn't see anything else. She couldn't hear anymore too, and she suddenly felt cold and had the feeling she was falling into the void.

The last thing she thought about before her mind went completely blank was in a pair of intense blue eyes.

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><p><strong>Weeeeeeeeeeee, review?<strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note:** again, thanks for the review! :'D

And also... I'm sorry I didn't upload this yesterday... ._. Too big.

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><p>From the top of the Tiger I, Herzog pictured an easy victory. And after that easy victory his men could gather more loot, and with part of the loot Agnes would buy a GPR, and then he would kill her, and she'd find more soldiers, and his army would be bigger, and district by district Norway would be taken and...<p>

And...

And...?

And... was that the one-armed thief, now two-armed thief because one his arms was Herzog's? How dared he to just stay there, like a huge German tank and the elite of the Reich weren't going towards him? And who were his two subordinates, was that his army? Was that the resistance? That was pathetic, Herzog deserved something better!:

'Halt!', he shouted into the tank and raised a closed fist to stop his infantry. Michael opened the hatch near Herzog's to see what was going on. The thief said something, but Herzog didn't speak English. Michael called Rottenführer Bergen and repeated what had been said:

'He said he hoped you didn't mind because he brought some friends to play along.', Rottenführer Bergen translated. Herzog frowned, feeling both angry and humiliated; angry because that stupid thief dared to defy him in front of his men again, and humiliated because that common Rottenführer (he had to be younger than Fritz, by the way; what did he know about life?) spoke a language he didn't... and such intellectual skills would surely impress Agnes, and he didn't want that, and...

And...!

He felt like grabbing his officer cap, throw it to the ground and jump on it one, two, three, many times; was that Stavarin? Was that Stavarin and his men? How? Why? After all those years, Stavarin again? The damned Bolsheviks, the Ivans! Again! Come on, Herzog deserved better than that!:

'And he asked if isn't it bad when someone who should be dead isn't and comes back to kill you.', Rottenführer Bergen translated again, actually enjoying the badly hidden horrified expression in Herzog's face; that was indeed a most unexpected, and unwelcomed, surprise... and Herzog was a serious man who didn't like surprises, he had had one and that had been enough! Victory was his, had to be his!, why making things difficult? The Standartenführer was a patient man, but that was too much! He studied the enemy troops, they were around 70. He had 100 men, German soldiers, Wehrmacht, SS and a Panzer. Of course he ordered his troops to attack and massacre those Bolshevik bastards!:

'Fritz, Albrecht, Wilhelm, Josef and Erdmann, stay here with me!', Sascha commanded, grabbing all of them by the back of their uniforms; Herzog wasn't reasoning, so he had to do it for him. Sascha, Fritz and Erdmann stood by one side of the tank, Albrecht, Wilhelm and Josef stood by the other. The Standartenführer didn't even notice them, too busy watching his troops and the thief's fighting. Fritz looked around, biting his lower lip softly:

'Where's Acney?', he whispered to Sascha:

'I hope she had time to hide.', Sascha replayed and looked around too, grimacing, and hoping that, unlike Herzog, she'd manage to help herself:

'Why are we standing here?', Fritz whispered again. 'I'm a soldier, not a statue!'

'Herzog is scared, he'll screw up everything.', Sascha said, and noticed Stavarin coming. 'These are not civilians, these are soldiers, like us. He wasn't expecting that.'

'But he never did something like this before!'

'Maybe because he wasn't an arrogant, greedy bastard before!'

Herzog was completely unaware of their conversation; he was too busy watching Stavarin coming closer, killing some of his men in the meantime, and his grip around the open hatch tightened, hate and fear at the same time, because that wasn't really in his glorious plans. Stavarin was closer and Herzog looked around, jaw clenched, and noticed 6 of his men standing near the tank. Sascha was looking at him, and suddenly the Standartenführer felt tiny and miserable and definetly a commander who didn't deserve an Ordonnanz (batman) like him. He just nodded and watched those 6 men charge against Stavarin... and fail miserably...

Then something else caught his attention; police cars. He exchanged a look with Michael, who nodded, disappeared into the tank and closed his hatch. Herzog sighed, annoyed, and left the tank. Right on time to see Stavarin hit Sascha, and that only made Herzog angrier.

After killing another SS soldier, Stavarin finally noticed Herzog had left the safety of his tank; and even if he hadn't, the Russian would have found a way of getting him. Herzog snapped his neck and began to walk towards the Russian.

And the Russian walked towards him. Both of them ignored the fight and the chaos around them, too busy looking at each other, studying the opponent, thinking about how to attack. Well, at least Stavarin was thinking in how to attack Herzog; the Standartenführer was too wrathful to think clearly, and the only thing he could think about was destroying.

They were close enough now and Herzog raised his arm. Too slow, Stavarin hit him. And Herzog felt even more wrathful. He tried again, and Stavarin punched him again. And again. And again, and he lost his ballance and fell. He just hoped Agnes wasn't watching this... The Standartenführer stood up, some of his good-sense coming back to him, all of what he had learned in the Officer Course and during his career flashing before his eyes; Stavarin was a big, fat Ivan, a little bigger than him, which meant he was stronger and slower than him. Herzog had to take profit of being smaller, lighter, and consequently faster. After some failed attempts he finally managed to block one of Stavarin's attacks and punch him, and was punched in return. He gave a few steps back and hit the Russian, who hit him back. That was irritating and the good-sense left again. The Standartenführer diverted from Stavarin's fist, grabbed his arm and managed, or so he hoped, to damage the shoulder joint. The soviet leader snarled angrily.

Now, that was something! Herzog took the chance to give him a headbutt. He got one in return and stumbled back, momently lost and blind by anger. He attacked again but Stavarin blocked him and punched him several times in the stomach before throwing him against the wall of a house.

_This is beyond humiliating, what is wrong with me? I'm invencible!, _Herzog thought as he stood up, just to lower himself again so that Stavarin punched the wall instead of his face. Well, he got his face next. And again. And again.

Until Herzog couldn't take it anymore and fell on the ground, helpless, confused, too confuse to think clearly, to realize what was going on. What was happening? The stupid Russian was using him like a mere punching bag and he couldn't do anything, just take it! What would Agnes think? What would his men think? They'd think their leader was weak, that's it! And nobody wants a weak leader, nobody wants to be the archaeologist of a weak leader! And they would prefer Rottenführer Bergen to him, because he was a Rottenführer, young, strong and had a bloody tank! Agnes would prefer the tank rat! And only then he realized Stavarin was about to kill him with a shovel; he couldn't die, he had men and a young woman to take care of!

However, Stavarin didn't kill him because one of his soldiers stabbed him in the back. For a moment Stavarin's and Herzog's eyes met, and the soviet leader fell on his knees, slowly, and then to the ground. And Herzog found himself looking at Sascha. And Fritz was already there, handing him a pickaxe.

Herzog exhaled slowly, finally calming down, but still feeling like the most miserable officer in the world, one of those officers who doesn't deserve such good men. Now not only his ego was mortally wounded, but his pride too. The least he could do was standing up and straighten his back, to look big and mighty again. He didn't dare to look at Sascha and Fritz when he held the pickaxe and gave Stavarin the final blow.

But before he could even have a little taste of that bitter victory the thief attacked him.

Sascha and Fritz watched as their Standartenführer was taked through the wall of a house. Sascha kicked the Russian corpse angrily:

'Goddamit Herzog, what's the matter with you today? Can't you do anything right without me?', he yelled in frustration. 'Fuck you and focus, focus, goddamit, you were always telling us that, you bloody, bloody boring and stupid bastard!'

'Sascha?', Fritz called. But Sascha was too busy ranting:

'He's a brilliant officer, what the fuck is wrong with him, they're just Russians, uglier and stinkier than us!'

'Sascha!', and the urgency on Fritz's voice made Sascha stop and pay him attention. 'Isn't that our little Acney?', he asked, looking to the other side of the big lawn, now a battlefield. Sascha looked too and widened his eyes:

'But what is wrong with these two, today?', he yelled again and started to run, Fritz following him close. 'I'm telling you Fritz, they must be in love, because people only get this stupid when they are in love!'

Sascha threw himself over the Russian soldier and they fell. Fritz kneeled next to them and stabbed the Russian in the head with his dagger:

'Freaking Ivan, he tried to kill her!', the brown-eyed zombie exclaimed like he had just witnessed the most cruel thing in the world. Then the two SS soldiers looked behind, to the young woman, and they both froze. 'Sascha... she... she isn't... right?'

Slowly, Sascha crawled towards Agnes and looked at her, horrified, and only then noticed the other dead bodies around her:

'Acne?', he called, shaking her by the shoulder. Nothing happened. Fritz kneeled next to them and slapped her uninjured cheek lightly:

'Acney?', he called too. 'Acney, come on... is not funny!'

'Agnes, damn it!', Sascha cursed and removed her scarf from her neck. He let out a hiss when he first saw her tattoos, thinking the barbed wire wrapped around her neck was real, but it wasn't, and he pressed his fingers on the side of her neck. 'She's alive.'

'Poor thing, look at her face!'

'I doubt she's feeling anything right now...', Sascha sighed sadly and wrapped the scarf around her neck again. 'They must have attacked her... I don't understand Herzog, she should have stayed in the tank!'

'She dealed with these Ivans alone.', Fritz said with wonder. His comrade looked around, biting his lip nervously, and he stood up:

'I'll get Herzog, you stay here and take care of her.', he demanded and left to look for Herzog.

Sascha thought it was a brilliant idea to start in the last place where he had seen him, so he ran back to where Stavarin was and got in the house to where Herzog had been taken by the thief. Passing through the hole in the wall, Sascha only had to follow the trail of destruction and finally found Herzog standing on a car, the thief at his feet, apparently defeated. The tank stood behind him.

The SS soldier made a face; seemed Herzog had managed by himself, dealing with a weaker opponent... He crossed his arms and decided to give his Standartenführer the satisfaction of actually killing an enemy before being given the bad news about Agnes. Sascha wondered how Herzog would react, and he hoped he wouldn't let the Doctor fix her...

Then he noticed the tank's turret was moving... moving to aim at Herzog's head. Sascha let out a colourful barrage of profanities and ran the faster he could towards Herzog and threw himself against the Standartenführer right on time to save him from being shot in the head... with a tank projectile... it would be a pretty mess...

They fell on the ground and rolled a little, before Herzog pushed him away, eyes flaming with hate and mouth open to shout at Sascha. But the younger soldier didn't give him the time, he just stood up and ran towards the tank; the turret was moving again:

'JUST HIDE, YOU IDIOT!', he yelled at Herzog while climbing the tank. He heard the thief curse and scream a name, but he couldn't care less. Sascha opened one of the hatches and jumped into the tank. Just like he suspected, the crew was dead and the enemy had taken over.

It was just one, though, and Sascha didn't give him the chance to attack; he threw his dagger at the enemy's head and he fell on his knees. Sascha then jiggled back and forth to burn off the adrenaline and took a chance to punch and kick the dead Rottenführer:

'He was just one and you are three, how did you let that terrible excuse of a man take over?', he roared, grabbing the dead body by the collar of the uniform and shaking it mercilessly. 'He nearly killed Herzog, do you know what happens if someone kills Herzog? We're all gone! I don't want to go, I like it here! And you are a fucking officer, why didn't you tell Herzog that Agnes should stay in the tank, do you know what happened to her? And if she was here she'd have behaved much better than any of you, you... you... you fucking tank rats!', and threw the Rottenführer against a seat and punched him a last time, letting out a yelp of frustration.

He then took a deep breath and left the tank. Outside Herzog had already killed the thief and, kneeling beside the dead boy, had undressed his trench coat and his uniform jacket. He then cut one of the thief's arm, rolled up his sleeve, cut off his «borrowed» arm with his SS dagger and re-attached his original arm.

All with such a calm that only made Sascha more irritated. He walked towards Herzog with large, angry strides and slapped his head when the Standartenführer was calmly dressing his jacket again. Herzog stood up and looked at him threateningly:

'Are you done? There, you got your arm, are you happy?', Sascha asked in a feral growl. Herzog frowned, confused. 'Yes, I can say more than 3 words at a time, you didn't notice, did you? Of course you didn't, you were too busy-', fast and efficient, Herzog's gloved hand covered Sascha's mouth:

'What is wrong with you?', the Standartenführer asked, truely confused; fine, it hadn't been the most brilliant of battles but... they won!. 'I know I owe you, I was going to thank you!', and he uncovered Sascha's mouth:

'I don't need your acknowlegment, I want to know what's going in your head! What was this, this was the most idiotic battle I've ever fought, that was not you commanding, you would never be so stupid to send the infantry first, instead of using the tank to kill some of the Ivans! I don't know if you noticed but those were not civilians, they were soldiers, and we had a lot of casualties-', Herzog's hand covered his mouth again.

The Standartenführer was nervous; not angry, he couldn't be angry anymore because he knew Sascha was beyond right. He was just humiliated and damn, he felt tired, and he was not supposed to feel tired:

'I don't know what happened, I just got furious!', he hissed. 'I had to destroy them first, before they destroyed all of you! Can't you see it Sascha, all I do is to protect my troops!', he sighed, slowly, he didn't like what he was seeing in Sascha's eyes; years and years of disappointment, and if there was someone Herzog couldn't stand disappointing was Sascha. And Agnes. 'And don't worry about the casualties, I will revive them. We're invencible, and today we won thanks to you!'

'-among them Agnes!', Sascha shouted, releasing from Herzog's hand. The Standartenführer widened his eyes and gaped, and Sascha swore he had never seen that expression on him before. But he was too revolted right now and jabbed Herzog's broad chest with a finger. 'She should have stayed in the tank, like when we attacked the previous village! Why did you tell her to follow the company? Because you were so, but so secure this would be easy, didn't you? You were so arrogant and wanted to show off so badly to us all, including her, that you didn't even think about her safety!', he paused, watching the effect his words had on Herzog. The Standartenführer was paler. 'I know you, Herr Standartenführer...', Sascha sounded both sad and exhausted. 'I know you, you know that? Do you remember that? And because I know you, I thought you'd keep her safe...'

He gave a step back, and suddenly Herzog looked small and fragile. He had seen him like that once, the only time Sascha had realized Herzog was a man, not just one of the most perfect killing machines the Führer liked so much or not just the Amazing-Officer.

They stared at each other for a while, in silence, until Herzog dressed his trench coat:

'Where is she?', he asked. He was trying to keep calm. Sascha turned his back at him and walked away, the Standartenführer followed him. 'Is she...?'

'No.'

'Good!'

'No, she'll feel horrible when she wakes up...'

They proceeded in silence. Herzog started to feel more and more ashamed, because he had understimated Sascha. And the rest of his men. They surely thought he was a fool, or in Sascha's words, an arrogant bastard. That has never been his intention! He had only tried to protect them! And he had failed, and had failed epically concerning to Agnes.

Fritz was kneeled next to her. Dietrich and his stick had joined him. The Standartenführer felt like an iron hand was squeezing his heart and lungs, making it difficult to breath and move. But he didn't need to breath, and he couldn't feel pain, physical or emotional, or at least he shouldn't.

He stoped next to Agnes and his face adopted a painful and guilty expression. He kneeled next to her, removed one of his gloves and touched her face carefully, evaluating the damage; her face was cold, except for her nose and left cheekbone, both places bloody and swollen. He slipped a finger between her scarf and neck and felt her steady pulse; at least that! Herzog looked to the bodies around her, and shook his head sadly:

'I told her to-', he started. Sascha cut him off:

'Which she did, and she probably felt so safe around us that maybe she decided to take a different direction from the column she was following. She was attacked and if Fritz hadn't seen her, she'd be dead by now.'

Herzog noticed one of her arms was in a strange angle. He took one of her hands and noticed some little, insignificant scratches from the fight. Then he noticed the blade coming out of her knee and he squeezed his eyes shut; her bad knee... He opened his eyes once more and stared at that bloody mess. He was even scared of looking out for more damage, but he needed to know. Her other leg seemed fine, so he took a deep breath and unzipped her jacket. No bloodstains, just those from the blood that was dripping from her face. He tugged up a little her sweatshirt and decided he didn't need to see more to know what happened when his eyes noticed the begining of a huge, dark and swollen hematoma over her ribcage.

The Standartenführer covered his face with the hands; he had been unable to protect his subordinates... again. He uncovered his face once more and just looked at her, hopelessly:

'The Doctor can fix her, right?', Dietrich asked, shyly. Herzog smiled bitterly and shook his head:

'Not our Doctor...', he mumbled:

'But Karl lost his leg and the Doctor fixed it with-', Dietrich tried again, until Fritz elbowed him and he shut up. Sascha looked around and noticed that the soldiers who weren't dead were now gathering their fallen comrades and looking curiously at them:

'So... what will we do with her?', he asked.

Herzog had no idea. He scratched his chin nervously; that was the perfect opportunity to kill her. In fact, that had been the plan, right? He'd win, she'd die. And that would only bring her advantages; no pain, her knee would never bother her again... and she'd be his archaeologist. His. Forever. And his men liked her, some even liked her too much and would have to learn to like her the exact quantity they were allowed to, and she liked his men too... so everybody would be happy! That was the right choice!

However...

He looked at her face; she was so young! By the way, how old was she? He had never asked, not for education but because that hadn't really mattered... but now it mattered. She had to be something between 18 and 21. Too young, she had a whole life ahead. He was sure there was a lot of things she would like to do, a lot of places she would like to go. He was sure she had a lot of friends she'd like to meet again. And her brother, the one who had been a soldier, she seemed to like him very much, it would be a shame if they didn't meet again.

And if he killed her, would she want to go with him? Would she want to spend the Eternity in a cold cave? And wouldn't she get bored of finding only soldiers, wouldn't she miss finding something Viking-related or those little stones archaeologists were so fascinated about?

Would she hate him, like his men surely did, for being so selfish and not let her go? He glanced at Sascha. And Fritz. And Dietrich. And over his shoulder, to his other men. Herzog looked at her again, lowered his head and laughed sadly; he couldn't be that selfish again. He couldn't make things worse.

So the Standartenführer stood up and walked away:

'What about her?', Sascha, Fritz and Dietrich asked in unison, with disbelief. Herzog stoped and turned around:

'She stays.', he answered. 'We can't take her with us, she needs medical care. Real medical care. I can't give her that.'

'But... she's one of us!', Sascha exclaimed, eyes so wide they seemed about to jump off. 'I... I thought she was part of the company!'

'And she is.', Herzog assured and turned his back again. He felt like punching something and hoped Rottenführer Bergen was dead:

'You'll leave her like this, really?', Sascha was about to yell again:

'Someone will find her.', the Standartenführer said. He really hoped so... 'Gather the dead, we have to leave.'

Dietrich looked at Fritz, who looked at Sascha, who looked at Agnes. With a whimper, the three of them began to walk away:

'I'm sorry, Acney! He's just stupid today, more than the usual!', Sascha whispered, glancing at her a last time.

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><p>Pain; the bloody pain was everywhere. It was cold too, but the pain was what really bother her. She opened her eyes, slowly, feeling dizzy and with a throbbing head. It was getting dark. And there was this stench in the air, a stench of death.<p>

Slowly, the memories from the recent events filled her mind and she groaned tiredly. It was better not to move:

'Herr Standartenführer?', she called, and thought about moving her head to look around. Her neck was sore and doing that made her feel sick. She squeezed her eyes shut. 'Herr Standartenführer?... Sascha?... Fritz?... Dietrich? Come on, Dietrich's stick?... Klaus?... Michael?', she took a deep breath and tried not to panick, because panick is never good. 'Hein? Hein, are you there?'

But no one answered. She panicked and tried to move, something that was really a bad idea; what if they were dead? What if there were more Russian zombies? What if the Russian zombies had volunteers too?

She heard steps and froze, thinking if she should pretend to be dead but at the same time hoping it was Herzog:

'Hello?', a man asked, peeking from the corner of the nearest house. 'Hello?'

'Over here!', Agnes called. The man trotted to her; he was a policeman. She hoped he wouldn't notice her disapponted face. He kneeled next to her and appointed his flashlight to her:

'Oh my God, what happened to you?', he then looked behind. 'I found a surviver! Call an ambulance, quick!'

'What happened?', Agnes asked as more policemen surrounded her. One of them held her hand patted it in a friendly way:

'Don't worry, you're safe now! The ambulance is coming!', he assured. Agnes couldn't care less about the ambulance:

'What happened?', she tried again:

'No no miss, we ask that!', one of the policemen said with a smile. The young archaeologist felt like crying, frustrated and sore:

'I... I was attacked... by those.', she said, using her good arm to signal the dead soviet zombies. 'I... I'm an archaeologist... I was working near the mountains, but the job was done, I still had a couple of days and decided to make a little tourism...'

'See, I told you!', one of the policemen told his colleagues. 'I told you there were zombies!'

'Russian zombies...', Agnes agreed; not Nazis, they were innocent this time! Completely innocent...

'They must be responsible for the massacre in the museum and in a little village nearby. You are very lucky, miss!', another policeman exclaimed.

_Yeah..._, Agnes thought bitterly. So, they were gone. And had left her behind. Herzog had left her behind.

She was carefully put into the ambulance and taken to the hospital. Everybody said she was lucky and had to be very happy for escaping alive. But she felt otherwise; the only people she had actually enjoyed being with had abanoned her, there were no reasons to celebrate.

_I wish I was dead._, she thought before being anesthetized, because she needed some surgeries.

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><p><strong>Weeeeeee, review?<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note:** I'd like to- :)

**Sascha: **PEOPLE LOVE ME AND MY FRITZ! \ò3ó/

**Fritz: **SO MUCH LOVE AFTER DEATH! \*u*/

**Auhtor: **-thank you for the revi- ._.

**Sascha: **MORE FRITZ TO THE PEOPLE! HEIL PEOPLE! :D

**Fritz: **MORE SASCHA TO THE PEOPLE! SIEG FANS! :D

**Author: **I quit...

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><p>The journey back to the cave was silent. Herzog went on foot, way ahead of his troops, walking with his hands behind his back and his head low. They had to hide the tank between two huge rocks halfway up the mountain and covered it with snow.<p>

When they reached the cave the sky was darkening and it was starting to snow. Herzog went straight to his little chamber and the rest of the troops went to their, no one talking to each other. Only the Doctor seemed to be in a really good mood.

Sascha stood outside, looking at his comrades getting in the dark and cold cave but not following. Fritz stood by his side, and when the last soldier vanished in the darkness, he asked:

'Shall we?'

'You go, I don't feel like having company.', Sascha mumbled and started to walk away from the cave. Fritz trotted after him. 'I'm serious, leave me alone!'

'No.'

'Don't make me make you turn around...', the blue-eyed soldier threatened, stopping in front of Fritz. The smaller zombie didn't even flinch and they just stared at each other for a while, angry blue eyes on comprehensive brown ones. Then Sascha began to move again and Fritz followed him.

They walked down the mountain in silence. The snow was still falling, swirling happily in the wind around the two dead soldiers. A few meters ahead, in a place where the mountain did a small upland, was a bunch of leafless trees around a small hole in the ground. Sascha kicked some snow out of the hole and sat, legs and arms crossed. Fritz managed to sit beside him, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on the top of his knees. Some more minutes gone by and the snow started to pile on their helmets and shoulders:

'What if she died in the meantime?', Sascha mumbled, looking at his hands inside what was left of his gloves; three fingers missing in the right glove and two in the left. 'How could he just leave her there? What if no one found her?'

'Maybe he didn't want to risk having her dying on the way...', Fritz said:

'Exactly, why didn't he just kill her? Can you imagine how painful it will be recovering that knee? And how will she feel, if she's still alive, when she finds out we're gone?'

'You said in the begining he wouldn't kill her.'

'I know, but he seemed to like her so much I thought he'd do that just to keep her close!'

'Maybe he likes her too much to do that...', Fritz shrugged. 'I wouldn't mind having her around the whole time... but I don't know if she'd like. And having someone alive around us... I don't know, it feels good. Like we aren't actually monsters.'

Sascha removed his helmet and placed it in front of his legs; he still had all of his hair, light blonde, and his hair was still disheveled, no matter how hard Fritz tried to domesticate it whenever Sascha hadn't his helmet on. His blue eyes followed the dancing snow flakes for a while, until he bent forwards and lay on his side, leaning against Fritz. The brown-eyed soldier stretched his legs the maximum the small hole allowed him to, and now Sascha was laid on his legs:

'I mean, I didn't have a chance and you brought me all the way up there! Do you know you have much more probabilities of surviving a stab in the knee and a broken nose than a shot in your throat?', Sascha snarled angrily:

'Herzog helped to bring you...'

'So, why did we leave Agnes behind? It's unfair, I should have brought her anyway, fuck you Herzog!', and to express himself better Sascha punched the ground. Fritz sighed patiently and shook the snow off Sascha's hair:

'Maybe he saw another injury we didn't and thought it would be dangerous to move her.'

'I thought you were on my side!', Sascha cried, aggrieved. 'And who told you to come, I told you to turn around and get in the bloody cave!'

'I'm not a child, I do what I want!'

'You're younger than me!'

'Two years, big deal!', and Fritz stuffed a handful of snow into Sascha's mouth. The blue-eyed zombie coughed angrily, spitting bloodstained snow to the ground. Fritz looked at it for a while, listening to Sascha curse, then he looked at his comrade and tried once more to comb the rebel blonde hair with his fingers. 'And I'm always on your side, just in case you didn't notice.'

'Of course I did...', the other soldier snarled, raising his hand to touch the bullet hole in Fritz's chest. 'Take that helmet off, you look like a turtle. Hey, did I tell you about that one time when I was a kid and went to the zoo with my parents-'

'-and the goddamned turtle bit you, yes.', Fritz smiled and placed his helm near Sascha's. 'So, we'll just stay here?'

'Yes, I need to cool down and Herzog needs to cool down before I have a mighty talk with him. Stupid bastard...', the blue-eyed zombie grumbled as his hand crawled up Fritz's neck to try to grab a handful of hair, just for the sake of it. Fritz still had all of his hair too, impeccably shaved on the sides of the head and even more impeccably combed to one side on the top of the head. 'You'll never quit the Hitlerjugend haircut, will you?'

'I like it, it has been with me since I was 10.'

'Suits you.', and Sascha grinned, messing the once impeccably combed hair. He let his hand fall on his stomach and just watched as Fritz solved the mess he had done. 'Do you think she's coming back?'

'I guess so.', even though Fritz was as unsure as Sascha, he knew he had to be the confident one for a while:

'Herzog wasn't that much of a bastard when she was around.', and he smiled, sadly. 'I hoped he was recovering from whatever happened to him. The bastard never told me...', he added bitterly, closing his eyes. They stayed in silence for a while and the snow started to fall violently from the dark sky above them.

At first Fritz thought it was the wind, until he finally noticed it Sascha humming contently. He stopped stirring Sascha's hair and the blue-eyed soldier stopped humming:

'So, you didn't want me to come along.', he said with a smile:

'Shut up and keep doing that.', Sascha replayed.

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><p>Herzog sat on his field bed and removed the officer cap from his head, leaving it next to him. He then hid his face on his hands; he felt tired, and he was not supposed to feel tired... no, he felt exhausted. And old, and empty, and there was this little voice inside his head screaming at the top of its lungs that he had wasted his only chance to redeem himself at the eyes of his men... and have someone by his side, someone he could talk to, have intelligent conversations with; she surely knew something about art, and music, and literature.<p>

However there was also this other voice in the back of his mind telling him to just stop thinking about that and behave like a proper officer, a proper German, a proper leader of the elite. He was too powerful and important to be worried about such trifles like a woman and the opinion of his troops; that was past, it was over. He had things to do, he couldn't just be like that. Feel. He was dead, he shouldn't feel, it was just the little traitor that was mind, tricking him again with impossible 'ifs'.

Sascha would hate him even more than before. And Fritz. And Dietrich. And Rottenführer Bergen. What if they all rebeled against him and chose Rottenführer Bergen as their new leader? What if they killed him? Herzog grinned sadly before this option; well, at least on that point he was a very democratic man... he could fall, but everyone would fall with him... Or maybe that wasn't democracy and fairness, but just his selfishness again. His unability of letting go the ones he cared about.

He wrapped his arms around himself and lay down, eyes lost and seeing things only he could. And he didn't notice the time go by, and he didn't hear his troops, and he didn't even notice Sascha checking on him everyday.

He felt dead. Just because he had spared a life.

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><p>When Agnes woke up she was alone in a hospital room. She didn't like hospitals. There was a small bag of serum connect to her hand and she had a protective mask because of her broken nose.<p>

A nurse came in to check her few hours later and smiled when she noticed Agnes was awaken:

'How do you feel?', she asked, and the archaeologist felt like telling her to go to a place where the sun didn't shine:

'Great...', Agnes replayed and faked a smile. The nurse noted something in her note pad:

'There is a policeman outside who'd like to speak to you.', she informed. Agnes frowned:

'Sure...', and she watched as the nurse walked out of the room and a policeman came in. It was the same policeman who had found her and he had a big idiotic smile. Agnes wanted to leave. Now. He pulled a chair close to her bed and sat:

'Feeling better?', he asked. Another imbecile...:

'I've never been this good before.', Agnes replayed. He just nodded, still smiling:

'I need to ask you a few things, is that ok?'

'Go ahead.', and he removed a small note pad and a pen from a pocket of his jacket:

'I need your full name.'

'Agnes Hummel.'

'And, as I recall, you are an archaeologist and you were working nearby, right?'

'Exactly.', _What a creep!,_ she thought:

'Tell me, Miss Hummel;', and Agnes felt a little twinge in her heart and thought about Herzog calling her 'Fräulein'. 'did you know that just a few days ago a group of medical students was brutally murdered in that same area?'

'Really?', and she widened her eyes, because she really didn't know about that. 'Do... do you know who was it?'

'One of the students. He's dead now...', the policeman sighed, writing. 'And did you know about a massacre in the local museum, a few days ago too?'

'I heard of it.', Agnes answered innocently:

'But still you remained in the area.'

'I'm a local, where should I go? Besides, it's that kind of thing you think will never happen to you. And do you know when do I get a little time for some tourism?', she replayed dryly. The policeman raised his hands:

'Ok, ok. Now, can you please tell me how did the attack began?'

'When I arrived I thought everything was too quiet, and when I was about to leave those... things... attacked me.', and she wondered if the police had seen the marks in the ground left by the tank. 'Where those men in a mask?'

'We... we don't know yet.', the policeman scratched his head. 'Did you see a tank?'

'Hell no, did they have one?'

'Some of my colleagues saw a tank, but we found nothing.', and Agnes hoped he didn't notice her sighing, relieved. 'So, you were attacked. And?'

'And before the inability of your supposed colleagues to help me, I had to manage myself... and here I am!', she exclaimed with a yellow smile. 'If that one', and she appointed her injured knee, under the blanket. 'disables me from working, I'm going to take this to the court.'

The policeman seemed utterly distressed:

'I... I'm sorry Miss, I promise we'll do whatever we can to find out who's behind this!', he stood up and tried to smile again. 'Thank you for your time, I wish you the best recoveries!'

'You better do, I need to have a serious conversation with someone...', she mumbled, mostly to herself; of course she knew who was behind that, and she bet she knew who had killed the students.

She just didn't understand why didn't they tell her. Why didn't Herzog tell her. She was part of the company, right? His archaeologist and all... Comrades, Sascha said. Comrades don't hide things from each other, do they? Her brother didn't to that to his comrades, and they didn't do that him.

Agnes facepalmed and let out a suffering grumble; yeah, she was so messed up to the point of believing a dead SS Standartenführer is a honest man and a dead SS Einsatzgruppe are good and friendly people. Or maybe they're actually good people and she's so weird she scared them and they decided to don't trust her. Or maybe the Einsatzgruppe is perfectly fine with her and the Standartenführer just wanted her archaeological services, and therefore didn't even bother in telling her "Fräulein Agnes, I already sent my men killing some students, but I need more men to kill more people.". Or maybe everybody was awesome and the Standartenführer didn't want to scare her by telling her details of their gory life, or death, or whatever was that. Or maybe she was just so messed up that she had allowed herself to think she had finally found a place where she wanted to be, with people she wanted to be with, and people who wanted her to be around.

She shook her head and felt a sharp pain on her side, where her ribcage had been broken. She let out a hiss and went quiet. And now that she had noticed her ribcage, her shoulder was starting to ache a little too. And her nose. And holy crap, her knee was quite a sadisic bastard!

Agnes looked around, sadly; alone in a hospital room. For how long had she been there? When was she allowed to leave? And what would she do next, just keep going o with life like a blue-eyed Standartenführer hadn't shown up asking for her help and seeming curious about the runestone she had been working on? Should she go back to them and ask what to do next?

The nurse came back with a doctor who checked her quickly and told her that her shoulder was back in place, that the surgery to fix her nose had been a success, that the surgery to fix her 10 broken ribs had been perfect and that, unfortunately and due to an old lesion, her knee joint had to be fixed with screws:

'If had been only for the stab, you wouldn't need the screws, or at least wouldn't need them for the rest of the life.', the doctor explained before her horrified expression:

'Wait, for the rest of my life...?', Agnes repeated with a weak voice. The doctor nodded. 'I'm an archaologist... I... I sometimes spend hours and hours walking, or kneeled, or crouched...'

'I'm sorry... but you can't overstrain your knee like that from now on.', the doctor said sadly. 'You'll need to do at least two months of physiotherapy.'

'Two months...', Agnes wished the ground would swallow her. 'How long will I stay here?'

'A month.'

'Oh my...', she sighed and hid under the blankets; a month! She couldn't stay there for a month; she couldn't stop for five minutes, how'd she stay there for a month and not die of boredom? And her work, the company she worked for was surely going to fire her! And what about Herzog, what if the authorities found him and killed him? She peeked from under the blanket:

'What if I don't want to stay?', and both the doctor and the nurse made a face:

'Well, your knee will never fully recover and you might need a cane, or another surgery, or you might have your leg amputated for impotence of the limb.'

'Sounds good to me. Where are my clothes?', because... what did she have to lose? The thing she loved doing the most, archaeology and field work, were gone. At least in the world of the living.

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><p><strong>Weeee, review?<strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note: **thanks so much for reviews! :'D

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><p>Agnes left the hospital the next day with the help of a pair of crutches and, because she didn't want to go home in public transports and because she thought she deserved to feel all that pain for being so stupid to the point of letting herself like a bunch of dead men... she went on foot.<p>

It took her a gloriously painful hour to cross the whole town and reach her appartment block, then she could use the lift to go to the 2nd floor, where she lived. The first thing she did when got home was phoning to a towing company to go fetch her jeep and the owner of the house she had rented to ask them nicely if they could bring the rest of her things, because she had been a poor victim and the vitorious only surviver of those horrible psychos who had massacred all those people in the previous days.

Then she sat on one of her big puffs and cried, first because she wanted a nice and warm bath but she couldn't have one yet because of the stitches and the mask on her face, and second... she was tired of being strong... but so, so tired! She wished she had someone to be strong for her, at least for a while, and tell her everything would be fine, that she could drop the mask and wouldn't be judged. But she had no one.

The next day she had her jeep back. And two days later the rest of her things, including her laptop. Agnes decided she had wasted too much time crying over herself and wrote a pretty e-mail to the company she worked for, telling them about her disabling injury and saying she'd send a copy of the medical exams as soon as she received them, and that she was very sorry but she was resigning. Then she sent an e-mail to the director of the unchancy local museum with her CV and spent the rest of the day looking for cheap houses near the mountain.

On the following day the company answered her e-mail, saying they were very sorry and that her wage was already in her bank account, together with a few bonus, because charity is a pretty thing, and that were was no need to send a copy of the medical exams. And Agnes also got an answer from the director of the local museum, who wanted to hire her right away, because after what had happened nobody wanted to work there and the museum couldn't be closed. She then told him about her injuries and that she'd need at least two months to recover a little and move in. The director should be really desperate, because he didn't mind waiting.

So Agnes spent the rest of the week looking for the perfect little house, that she eventually found, and she made a note to self to thank Herzog and his men for scaring everybody so much that now every house rent in that zone was ridiculously low. _That_, she thought bitterly as she e-mailed the person who was selling the house, _if I ever see them again..._

The last step for absolute victory was finally managing to have a bath, and she hoped that the yellow thingy around the stitches in her ribcage and knee was nothing a cotton ball with oxigenated water couldn't take care of.

It had been a week and a half since she had left the hospital. With all of her courage, loud music and the pair of crutches, she overcame the intense pain she felt every time she moved a little and boxed all her things. It wasn't much, though; two huge puffs, an inflatable mattress, some pillows and sheets and blankets, 4 duffel bags of clothes, a few pairs of boots because boots are never too much, a little box of nail polish because nail polish is never too much, her laptop, phone and MP3 player stuffed in her backbag, a small ironing table and its iron and all her many, many books stored in big boxes or bags. All of that carefuly placed into her Land Rover Defender with the help of an old neighbour who was more than happy to get rid off Agnes' music.

And ignoring the horrible pain in her knee, Agnes drove during the whole day from her old house to her new one, in the base of the moutains.

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><p>When Sascha and Fritz returned to the cave, by the morning, everybody was still sleeping, or just staring into nothing. The Doctor was sitting on his little corner, humming happily, and Sascha felt like killing him, and then give him to Herzog just to have the pleasure of killing him again:<p>

'You go tell everybody to act normally, I'll talk to Herzog.', Sascha told Fritz as they reached the bifurcation for the two separate hollows. The brown-eyed zombie nodded and the blue-eyed one got in Herzog's little chamber.

The Standartenführer was laying on his side, eyes lost and shineless. Sascha crouched next to him and made a face:

'So, now you'll just stay there?', he asked. No answer. 'And pretend I'm not here? You can't do that to me, you know that.', but again no answer. Sascha sighed. 'Herr Standartenfüüüüühreeeeeer...', he called patiently. Nothing. Sascha stood up and grimaced. 'I'll come back again, you're not getting out of this that easily!'

Joining Fritz, Sascha found out his comrade was being completely ignored by everybody. Well, he couldn't blame the others... he wouldn't be scared of or impressed by Fritz, either... although the brown-eyed soldier was quite something with a machine-gun in hands:

'Come on, let us all go outside and pretend nothing happened.', Sascha demanded, standing behind Fritz. Slowly and with a lot of grunts and snarls, the others began to move. Rottenführer Bergen stood up:

'Wait a minute!', he exclaimed. 'Where is Herr Standartenführer?'

'Beauty-sleep, and you don't want to wake him up.', Sascha replayed and crossed his arms. He didn't like that Rottenführer. Well, Rotenführer Bergen didn't like Sascha and crossed his arms too:

'Du bist nur ein Soldat. Du kannst keine Befehle geben.' (You're just a private. You can't give orders.), he replayed with the most logical arguments. All the other zombies sat around them like they were the most interesting show they've ever seen. Sascha offered the Rottenführer his best sardonic smile, showing his bloodstained teeth:

'It happens, Herr Rottenführer, that I'm Standartenführer Herzog's Ordonnanz and I've been with this Einsatzgruppe since 1938, when we first went to the Sudetenland. Where were you back then, playing drums in the Hitlerjugend?', a general 'ooohhh!' was heard and the troops looked at the Rottenführer, waiting for his answer. His cheeks had a darker tonality. 'I've been his Ordonnanz since that time, too. And there were never other officers with us, he doesn't like when other officers tell his men what to do. Which means I'm in charge when he's not. And if I say we are going outside and keep an eye in our mountain, so we are going outside and keep an eye in our fucking moutain!'

The Einsatzgruppe and the SS and Wehrmacht soldiers that had joined the company clapped, mostly to annoy the Rottenführer. Fritz decided to fan the flames:

'You don't need to be jealous, you have Wittmann* and Peiper* to command!', he said and everybody laughed. Including Michael and Joachim. Rottenführer Bergen turned his back at them and went to a little corner of the cave, where he sat facing the wall. His tank crew ended up joining him as everyone else made their way outside, just for the sake of their comradeship.

However, a week and a half gone by and Herzog was still like that, laying on his side, eyes lost and shineless. Sascha started to freak out and there was a day that he shook Herzog by the shoulder and poked him several times in the neck, but the Standartenführer didn't move.

So his ever faithful Ordonnanz assembled the troops to discuss an emergency plan previously traced by him:

'I propose we kick him out and only let him in when he brings our little Acney again.', he said solemnly:

'Are you trying to take over?', Rottenführer Bergen asked, but Michael covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head. Sascha ignored him:

'I agree with Herr Rottenführer! You are trying to take over and it's unnaceptable that you want to bring that local back! Look what she did to our leader!', the Doctor exclained:

'I say we should kick Herzog and the Doctor out and leave Bergen because Michael and Joachim are good people.', Fritz said. 'By the way Dietrich, the Doctor said your stick is stupid and useless. And Konrad, the Doctor said you like Dietrich's stick for a reason, but he didn't say why.'

And it was with great joy (especially for Dietrich and Konrad) that the Nazi troops tied the Doctor to a nearby rock with some guts. And in the meantime, Sascha and Fritz went to Herzog's little chamber and stopped next to the field bed:

'You grab his ankles, I grab his wrists.', Sascha said and held Herzog's officer cap under his arm. They did as Sascha said and Fritz made a face:

'Holy shit, he's heavy!'

'90kg of muscle.', Sascha said. Only when they left the chamber Herzog noticed what was going on. He widened his eyes, looked around, and started to wriggle:

'ABER WAS IST LOS, MEINE IDIOTEN?' (But what's happening, my idiots?), he yelled. 'SASCHA!'

'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer! You'll thank us later!', Sascha assured him. They reached the entrace of the cave and Herzog noted the Doctor tied to a rock and grew paler; his men were actually rebelling! And Bergen was among them, the sneaky bastard!

But before he could say anything, Sascha and Fritz threw him to the snow. His officer cap landed next to him:

'And only come back with Agnes, are we understood?', Sascha asked and the rest of the troops came to stand behind him.

Laying on the ground, having to look up at his men, Herzog felt even more miserable than what he was already feeling. He didn't even understood what Sascha said. That was it, his men didn't want him anymore... but what hurt the most was that Sascha had done that to him. Sascha, his right arm! Or his once right arm... the one he had trusted the most.

He grabbed his officer cap and left, head low. What else could he do? Nothing, they would kill him if he tried something, and even though he was strong and all of that, they were more... they'd win. And really, was he that strong, that powerful? Didn't look like when Stavarin was using him like a punching bag. So he decided to leave, because maybe his men liked to be in this world, and if they wanted to he wasn't going to stop them.

But that did hurt. And why did all of a sudden his legs feel weak? He shook his head and nearly lost his balance; _Pull yourself together!_, he thought, frowning, wandering down the mountain. He didn't even know where to go. He felt like screaming and lay on the snow, maybe a crow would find him and think he was at least a worthy meal. While he walked, songs like «Ich hatt'einen Kameraden»**, «Sieg Heil Viktoria»** and «Wenn alle untreu werden»** echoed in his mind. And damn, that was hurting so much the Standartenführer felt his eyes sting, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he had started crying.

The sun was setting when Herzog realized he wasn't walking on snow anymore. That was forest soil, and a few meters ahead there were houses. And suddenly his legs didn't feel weak anymore and he walked faster, looking for something. Which he found; it was in a different place, but was there nonetheless!

To start with, that jeep screamed archaeology. And second, the day he had thought about using his dagger to open Agnes' door, he had noticed the jeep, because it resembled him a jeep he had driven once. So, if the jeep was there, Agnes had to be too. It was basic logic. And Herzog found himself knocking at the door like his life depended on that. But he didn't exactly have a life, but he couldn't care less about that.

However, he stopped and stood still, looking with wide eyes at the door; what if Agnes wasn't really there? She had been injured, she had surely been taken to a hospital and there wasn't anything like that in that place. Maybe she was still at the hospital. Or maybe that wasn't even her jeep parked next to that house, maybe it was just someone who had a jeep like hers, but wasn't her.

The Standartenführer was about to turn around and run away when the door was open.

Agnes opened it.

And they stared at each other, Agnes frowning and Herzog with big, wide open blue eyes, and he couldn't help but try to retract his neck into the collar of his uniform, like a turtle, because Agnes didn't look friendly. Or maybe it was just her swollen and yellowish face that was distorting the picture. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, slowly:

'Herr Standartenführer!', she exclaimed, surprised, and she was in fact surprised; he was the last person she expected to be knocking at her door! To be honest, she had hoped it was Sascha and Fritz, because knocking like that totally sounded like something Sascha and Fritz would do to annoy her.

But no, it was Herzog. And she could tell something was very wrong with him. Was he actually trying to hide? And why was he looking at her like that, like... like her appearence had been a miracle. He looked tense. And nervous. Too nervous. Scared, even.

Agnes let out a sigh, opened the door completely and stepped aside, putting her weight on her healthy leg:

'Just... don't stand there, come in.', she said. And with one big stride he was already in her house, and she locked the door after him. They looked at each other again and Herzog felt himself blush and trying to look away, but apparently even his eyes had life of their own, because they didn't look away from Agnes; she had a large t-shirt and some really short shorts, too short for any respectable young lady, and socks. Her hair was falling loose over her shoulders. She looked smaller, and way too fragile. He noticed the tattoos she had told him about and winced a little, wondering if she ever had barbed wire wrapped around her and knew how it hurted. But what caught Herzog's attention was the white bandage on her injured knee, half-hidden in an elastic black bandage. He frowned:

'How... how are you?', Herzog asked, truely concerned. She smiled sadly:

'I'm fine... got my nose broken, but a surgery solved that. Got hit in the cheekbone, but only that. Got 10 broken ribs, the surgery fixed those.', she sighed. 'My knee... had a surgery too, now I have some little screws to hold the joint in place. I can't do any field work anymore.'

Herzog squeezed his eyes shut and hid his face on his hands, leaning heavily against the wall behind him; he had ruined her life too, just like he had ruined the life of his soldiers. He started to shake lightly.

Agnes frowned; no, the Standartenführer was not okay. She took a deep breath and looked down, until she sighed and took a painful step towards Herzog:

'Hein...', she called. A blue eye peeked from behind a cage of gloved fingers. 'You... you look strange. Go take a bath and tell me what happened.'

Herzog uncovered his face and was about to explain her that dead men don't bathe... because they're dead... But the look on her face left no room for arguments. He nodded, slowly, and allowed her to help him undress the heavy trench coat and hang it together with his officer cap in the coat hanger; they were in a small hall, where she hung her jackets and left her boots and the pair of crutches, because she refused to walk around in the house with them. He left his boots there too, because he was an educated man, and followed her into the house. She could barely walk, but Herzog wasn't sure if he should do something about it... if she wanted his help or if she'd just pull away.

It was a small house with only the ground floor. The living room wasn't that big, even though it didn't have any furniture; just the two big puffs and Agnes' boxes and bags spread all over the floor. The kitchen was very small too, with a laudry area and a full length window. There was a closed door that Herzog presumed belonging to Agnes' bedroom and another one, at the end of the living room, that she opened to reveal a small bathroom:

'Excuse the mess, I got here yesterday night. Now, just get in there and take a bath, I'm sure my brother's clothes will fit you.', she said; her brother had been a big man too:

'What did your brother say about your injuries? And about you living alone like this?', Herzog asked, more than worried with the irresponsability of Agnes' elder brother. She gave him another sad smile:

'My brother died when I was 10... There isn't much he can say about me, now.', she replayed. The Standartenführer wished the ground could swallow him right then. She shrugged, noticing his embarassment and discomfort. 'Nevermind. It's past.'

Herzog felt like the most horrible creature in the world, mumbled an apology and got in the bathroom, closing the door after him. He then closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think clearly. It all seemed so surreal..

Undressing seemed the most logical thing to do before a bath. Glad with such a brillian idea, Herzog slowly started to undress, and that only made him more uncomfortable; one thing was being in a war and having to take a bath with his men around... other thing was being dead and being told by a young lady to take a bath. And there was only he and the young lady around. And he had just ruined her life. She certainly hated him right now.

Herzog piled neatly his clothes on the floor and gave a few shy steps to the shower cabin. Now, what the heck was that? He had never seen such a thing, but apparently that worked with piped water. Oh, the wonders of progress; it should be good to live in a world where people didn't have to heat up water in a giant pot to fill a bathtub or didn't have to queue in front a tank, waiting for someone to empty a bucket of cold water down their heads. He got in and closed the cabin door. Now, that thing had two taps, one with a blue ball and another with a red ball.

The Standartenführer growled at the red ball, because red reminded him of Communism, that reminded him of Stavarin... so he opted for the blue ball. He let out a sigh as he felt the cold water starting to pour on his head. He deserved that... he did deserve that...:

'I forgot to tell you the tap with the red ball is for the hot water.', said Agnes from the other side of the cabin door. It was an opaque door, still Herzog panicked and blushed like he had never panicked and blushed before and looked around for something to cover himself... but there was nothing. 'And you should really use the soap, you stink to death.'

'What are you doing here?', Herzog growled sadly and concluded his best option was turn around to face the wall. He heard her chuckle:

'I can't see you, relax... I'm just leaving clothes and a towel.', and she left. Herzog rested his forehead against the wall; that was too much for a day... first his soldiers kicked him out, and Agnes had just stood on the same place than he... while he was naked. That was too much for any decent man.

Maybe the hot water wasn't such a bad idea...

He allowed himself to relax a little as the hot water ran down his body. Maybe it was a little too hot, but he couldn't exactly feel the temperature; he didn't have that sensibility anymore. He crossed his arms, looking at the scars on them. Especially to the scar that marked the place where his arm had been cut and then attached again. Herzog started to shake again for no reson and he let out a low howl, squeezing his eyes shut.

What did Sascha say? Come back with Agnes. Good, he could go back, he had found her! And thanks to the little bastard, who had made him move his sorry arse and go look for her. Well, he hadn't exactly looked for her but... nevermind; this was his chance to fix things with Agnes and his troops. Especially with Sascha. Herzog opened his eyes again and looked at the steam dancing around him, from the contrast of the hot water against his freezing body.

Agnes was now his priority. He had a lot to tell her and a lot to ask her. He used to do that with his men, during the war; he never said much (an exception for Sascha) but they talked, and that was why they were so close. What was he thinking about when he went for Agnes?, maybe he had actually became a greedy and arrogant bastard afterall!

Herzog was determined to fix that, and he was going to start by using the soap.

* * *

><p>*Michael Wittmann and Joachim Peiper were Commanders in SS-Totenkopf Panzer divisions, two of the best tank aces from the war. Fritz is making a banter because well, the tank crew guys are Michael, Joachim and poor Rottenführer Bergen.<p>

**(I Had a Comrade, Hail Victory, When All Become Unfaithful We Remain Loyal) are SS marching songs (not the first, the first one was already sang during WWI) that will make you cry your eyes out

**Weeeeeeeeee, review?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Auhtor's note: **IT'S DONE! I'm sorry it took so long... ;-; Anyway, I'm posting this chapter and the next one together (in one piece and without the author note is has 18,400 words, and they'll still be monster-chapters!), but in case you find one of the * in this chapter you'll have to check the definition in the next chapter (because I'm complicated). Also, I had some + to signal every time break... but FF does not want signals, it wants words! So, pardon me if there are some confusing parts... ._.

Oh, just one last thing...

**Sascha**: BRACE YOURSELVES, THE FEELZ ARE COMING!

* * *

><p>While stepping outside the shower cabin, Herzog noticed the full length mirror in the wall, right next to the cabin. He narrowed his eyes, studying himself in the mirror; yes, he didn't change much... if it wasn't for the gashes in his face, his blueishgreyish skin and the abnormally dark rings around his eyes he could perfectly go undercover among the living. Herzog made a face, taking a better look at the tiny wrinkles that had started to appear on his face; the little bastards, uh? The rest of his body wasn't that bad all considered, and he allowed himself to grin sadly at the tricked aging process; great victory, forever 47! Then he shook his head and looked away; _Stop being vain..._, he thought.

Agnes had left a towel and a pile of clothes for him, on the carpet. He dried himself and dressed what appeared to be grey tracksuit pants and a grey t-shirt; the clothes camouflaged perfectly on his body and he felt too exposed with bare arms. Especially with that damned scar showing. Maybe if he crossed his arms... Yes, crossing his arms sounded like a great idea.

* * *

><p>Agnes was sitting in a puff, trying not to fall asleep, when the bahtroom door opened and Herzog came out, arms crossed over his chest and visibly uncomfortable for walking around without his uniform. She offered him a tired smile:<p>

'Fits you.', she said. 'Come here and take a sit.', obediently, Herzog joined her and sat in the other puff in front of her; he didn't look that threatening without the black uniform, but he was still a big man. 'I put your clothes in the washing machine, in a minute or two they'll be ready to go to the dryer machine.'

Herzog frowned; that was a lot of machines! Anyway, he was glad that at least Agnes had something to save her from boring domestic chores and spare her knee. He looked down, to the white socks on his feet, and tried to ignore how exposed he felt. He looked at her again:

'You look tired.', he started:

'We need to talk.', she replayed, and Herzog felt an idiot again. But he was not going to be intimidated by Agnes, no! He was not going to back off again, this time he'd to the right thing:

'We do.', he agreed. 'But tomorrow. You look exhausted. Have you eaten something and taken painkillers?'

Agnes' turn to feel like an idiot and she looked down, at her hands:

'I'm not hungry...'

'You said you eat a lot.'

'I do... but I don't feel like eating.', she smiled sadly. 'And I don't take painkillers, I don't like them.'

Herzog stared at her for a while. With a sigh, he moved from the puff to kneel in front of her and took her hands, carefully, and took it as a good sign when she didn't move away. Reminded him a little of a talk he had to have with Sascha, once:

'Broken bones and surgeries, I've been there.', he started. 'And I didn't want anesthesia nor painkillers too. It feels good to prove ourselves how strong we are, isn't?, and at this point the young woman looked at him. 'How well we can handle the pain. Or maybe I should say, how well we handle a pain that we deserve.', and Agnes frowned and he offered her a grin. 'How old are you?'

'20...'

'I've been there too. And what have you done to think you have to feel your bones and muscles going back to place? That's what you're telling me tomorrow, are we understood?'

Agnes just blinked her eyes and managed to smile:

'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.', she replayed. 'But you have to tell me about you first.'

'I thought ladies were first...'

'That's a Middle Ages tactic!', and her eyes seemed shinier, just like when Herzog had asked her about the Holy Grail. He smiled and waited for an explanation. 'There was a lot of court intrigues, so whenever the noblemen had to climb stairs or go through a door, they'd tell the ladies to do first; if there was someone on the other side waiting for them, the ladies would be killed first, which would give them the time to either run or withdraw a sword. And they call this «courtesy».'

'Oh my...', and Herzog's smile died and he hid his face on his hand. 'I lived wrong all this time! I thought it was educated!'

Agnes just laughed, delighted, and she didn't even notice the pain in her ribcage:

'It's okay.', she said, and then heard a little 'bing!' from the washing machine. 'I'm just going to put your clothes in the dryer, I'll be right back.'

'No, you're going to sleep.', and Herzog stood up and offered her both hands. 'I can take care of that, machines and buttons don't scare me.', Agnes rose both eyebrows. 'Besides, it's my uniform. My things, my responsability.'

'Very well, then.', Agnes sighed and held Herzog's hands, considering her options:

a-write in a paper how the machines worked

b-believe Herzog could actually handle that (which would be epic; living men don't go along with those, would a dead man go?)

c-mentally prepare to buy new machines

She stood up, making a face when her knee decided to bother her again, and thought option a) was the best:

'I can write the instructions for you.', she said, walking away carefully. Herzog didn't know exactly if he should hold her or ask her if she wanted help, so he followed her close, hands ready to catch her:

'I need no instructions.', he replayed. The young woman sighed, forced to chose option c). Slowly, she made her way to the bedroom door and opened it. Herzog stopped right behind her, respectfully, and wished her a good night before making his way to the kitchen, switching the light on as he got in.

He stopped in front of the two machines in the laundry area and narrowed his eyes. He could make this. He could totally make this. He kneeled in front of the machine that had his clothes inside and studied it carefully, trying to figure out where to open it. Well, he'd try all the buttons! And what a lucky man he was, he managed to open it at the first try! Now... the dryer was open, so he just shoved his clothes in there and frowned before all those buttons. There was this button that said 'Temperatur' and he grinned victoriously; thank you Norwegian words that are exactly the same as German! He decided to click it until the little green light was in the 'Medium', that was surely the same 'Medium' as in German. There, it wasn't that difficult! Then he pressed 'Starte', because that had to be the German 'der Start'. And the machine began to work.

There. Once more, victory was Herzog's! He then looked around in the kitchen; there were some devices quite similar to the ones he already knew, like that thing that had to be a stove, and that other thing had to be one of those American 'refrigirators' he once heard someone talking about. He was actually curious about that, he had never seen such a thing, so he walked towards it and opened the door.

It was kind of fresh inside it. And there was some food. Agnes had eggs; good, he could make her something decent to eat. He then decided to explore the rest of the kitchen and eventually found the pantry with some food stored. Good, there was bread.

Then there was a «bing!» and the Standartenführer looked at the machine, frowning; was that the way the machine communicated? He kneeled in front of it again and after a few failed attempts he succeeded in openening it and removing his clothes. Now he just needed to iron them, but he'd do that tomorrow.

He made his way back to the puffs and sat. Herzog looked around and concluded that house didn't seem comfortable enough for a young woman to live in. It wasn't because of the boxes and bags on the floor, it was because the walls were completely naked; no pictures, no paintings, no bookshelves... And come on, she intended to spend the rest of her life sitting on these giant pillows? Wasn't a couch better? And where were her friends to help her? He did need to have a serious talk with her, she couldn't live that spartan; she deserved better than that! Then Herzog found himself smiling sadly and staring at his hands; who was he to even think that, by the way? He had just ruined her life, she surely wouldn't want him to stay around.

The Standartenführer shook his head and made himself comfortable on the puff, trying to think positive.

* * *

><p>When the first sunlight made its way through the blinds and into the living room, Herzog stood up and made his way to the kitchen; he spent the whole night thinking and was feeling exhausted again. Yet he made her a plateful of scrambled eggs, because he could be a dead Nazi officer, but he was a pretty useful one.<p>

He grabbed the dish and made his way to Agnes bedroom. The door was closed and he knocked educatedly, then frowned and wondered if that was actually a good idea. Now that he was standing there, it seemed too intimate, and he felt like he wasn't ready for such a thing and, more important, that Agnes wouldn't like that. He was about to turn around when Agnes opened the door, looking very sleepy and tired:

'Yes?', she mumbled. Herzog made a face:

'You were not supposed to stand up! Go back to bed!'

'If I wasn't supposed to stand up, why did you knock?', and she tried to hide a smile when the Standartenführer blushed, mumbled something like 'I made you breakfast...' and showed her the dish.

So they ended up sitting on her bed. Well, Agnes on her bed, Herzog on the floor, quite shocked with the fact that she was sleeping on an inflatable matress. Anyway, she seemed to be enjoying the food, so he eventually shut up and looked around; there was just the matress and a wall wardrobe, with dark wooden doors:

'So... do you feel better?', the Standartenführer decided to ask. Agnes had finished and nodded, putting the dish aside. 'Good. Now lay down again.'

'I have to unpack my things! You can talk while I do that!'

'No, you have to recover.', and they both made a short staring contest that Herzog won, because really, one does not simply hold those two blue eyes for long. With a resigned sigh, Agnes lay down and made herself comfortable, pulling the blankets up to cover her legs:

'Now, you start.', she said, just in case Herzog had forgotten. He leaned his back against the wall and looked down:

* * *

><p><em>Herzog was born in 1898, in a small village near Berlin. His father had a small farm with a few chickens, and as a child one of Herzog's favourite domestic chores was feeding the chickens, and then hide them in the hopes his mother wouldn't cook them. He was what could be considered a normal German child, blonde and blue eyed, even though he had always been bigger than his fellows. <em>_In school he was actually a good student, but his parents were more interested in farming than in the «intelectual activities», as they called it. This made Herzog conclude he didn't want to be an ignorant peasent like his parents._

_In his free time, Herzog liked to sit on a wooden fence in the outskirts of the village and watch the horses. He thought them beautiful, too beautiful and noble to be ridden by mere human beings. So he decided he was going to be a rich man and have horses, just for the pleasure of grooming and looking at them. The horses liked him back, because they always gathered around him and allowed him to pet their heads or braid their manes._

_When he was 13 he met a girl, Erika, and he happened to like her a lot. He liked her so much he broke a lot of noses from his friends, until they understood the message and stopped trying to befriend her. And Erika seemed to like him, because it's not every day a really big lad decides to be your body-guard. Erika was a beautiful girl, blue eyed and blonde haired, with fair skin and freckles on her nose that gave her quite a rebel look that Herzog really liked. She was also tall and strong, proud and defiant. But what he liked the most was her intelligence, she was a very cultured girl and played fiddle. However, she had a 'von' between her name and surname, and even if she seemed to forget about that when she was with Herzog, her family always remembered her about that._

_So everytime Herzog wanted to invite her to go out with him, they had to be carefull. Her family didn't want a peasent like him walking around the village with their precious daughter. Erika loved the adventure that was sneaking out of the house and run to the fields, to meet Herzog, and walk with him in the forest or watch the horses._

_At the age of 15 Herzog was really sure of his feelings and told her he wanted to marry her, and that he was going to finish school, get a decent job, earn lots of money and prove her family he was worthy of her. Erika promised him she would wait for him. And at the same time Herzog knew exactly what he wanted to do with life, he was really shy. He told her (babbled...) many times he loved her, but that was that. Erika thought him adorable and felt a lucky girl everytime she looked at the girls in the village having to deal with teenage boys and their hormones._

_When he was 18 Germany had been fighting a war for 2 years, and Herzog wanted to be part of the Iron Youth too. In fact, that was a brilliant plan; he'd be a great soldier, be promoted to officer, earn a lot of money and afford Erika a good life. Besides, who was the father that didn't want his daughter married to an officer?:_

_'I'll write you whenever I can!', he promised the night before his departure. It was Summer, and behind the fence the horses were looking at them, playing the role of testemonies. Herzog held Erika's hands on his and their eyes shone in the darkness; the moon was not in the sky that night and the stars were too weak:_

_'You know I can't write you back... my father would find out.', she mumbled sadly, looking down. Then she looked at him, worriedly. 'You'll come back, won't you? And you won't go to those brothels, will you?'_

_'Of course I will come back, and of course I'm not going to those places! Erika, you know me!', and he blushed even more:_

_'I'll be here waiting for you.', she then smiled. 'I'd kiss you right now... but I want our first kiss to be a welcome one, not a farewell one.'_

_Herzog managed to blush even more and smiled like an idiot in love._

_He was the best during the recruit and arrived to the western front as a promising soldier. He soon found out life wasn't exactly like what he had been told during the recruit, but he didn't take long to discover how to ignore the horrors of the trenches and to find the beauty of the battle and of the scorched land around him, wounded deeply by bombs and mines. What bothered him the most were the rats, and he was the best at killing rats with shovels. Somehow he managed to be as clean and shaved as possible, because he really hated everything that was dirty and had a high probability of carrying germs._

_His first year in the trenches was a glorious one, and he became famous for his bravery and efficiency. He got a few scratches, nothing serious, and as promised he wrote Erika whenever he could. He never wrote his parents, though; those peasents didn't deserve it. Herzog was promoted to Corporal in the New Year eve due to his merit in battle. __However, his second year in the trenches wasn't that glorious; he fought even better, was even braver and commanded some noctural assaults to the enemy trenches, across the No Man's Land... and was exactly during one of those assaults that he lost men for the first time, and that would haunt him forever._

_Crossing the No Man's Land to reach the enemy trench was easy, killing some English soldiers was even easier... but when they were retreating, the English soldiers threw grenades randomly in the dark, and the explosions and the shrapnel hit Herzog and his assault group. The young German corporal was projected to the muddy ground, just like his comrades, and suddenly seemed his legs were on fire; there was shrapnel spiked in his flesh:_

_'Is everybody alright?', he asked his men in a whisper, trying to ignore the pain. Then the red light of a flare gun illuminated Herzog, still lying on the mud, and the 10 men he had brought, also lying next to him. The man at his left was bleeding profusely from his back, where the shrapnel had hit him. The red light was followed by shouts in English, which meant the English soldiers were leaving their trenches to go after the Germans. Herzog didn't think twice, he yelled at his men to stand up and run. He stood, slowly and painfully, and at each step he could feel the shrapnel digging deeper into his flesh. Yet he grabbed his fallen comrade and put him on his soulder like a potato sack and ran after his men._

_The red light again, brief but strong in the dark sky above them. His men were right after him. He could hear the English soldiers and a bullet grazed his shoulder. Another of his men screamed and fell:_

_'Verdammt!' (Damn!), he hissed and stopped, much for his other men's displeasure:_

_'They're coming!', one of them said:_

_'Then do something useful and bring your comrade!', Herzog yelled at him, and the soldier had no other option than grabbing his comrade and carrying him on his shoulder._

_The Germans kept running, with bullets flying too close to them. The red light again and, a few meters ahead, Herzog saw the barbed wire fence they had carefully cut and passed through on their way to the English trench; it had a small cut, large enough for a single man, but that single man had to be carefull not to get his limbs hurt on the loose ends of the barbed wire. Herzog gave the man he was carrying to another of his comrades and removed his rifle from his back:_

_'Go, I take care of them!', he ordered his men, lying on the ground and shooting into the darkness, where he supposed the enemy was moving. He heard a few screams, which meant he was being sucessful, but also that the English soldiers were getting closer:_

_'Herr Unteroffizier!' (Corporal, sir!), the last man crossing the barbed wire called. Herzog couldn't stand up fast enough to cross the barbed wire without being shot or captured by the English, so he crawled, and as he did that he felt one of the loose ends of the barbed wire curl around one of his arms. The English soldiers who were chasing them reached the barbed wire and one of them fell on it, screaming at the top of his lungs. One of Herzog's men shot him in the head, just to be shot in return by another English soldier. He fell next to Herzog, who managed to get rid off the barbed wire at the cost of a deep cut in the palm of his hand, stood up, grabbed and carryed him. They left the English soldiers behind and after a few more meters they finally reached the safety of the German trench._

_When he jumped into the trench, Herzog's legs couldn't sustain him anymore and he fell on his knees, whimpering, but he didn't let go the man he was carrying. It was a bit confusing as many arms reached out to him and helped him to stand up again and to walk to the rearguard, where the military hospital was installed. At his point his head was spinning and his vision blurred, his legs, shoulder, arm and hand bleeding painfully:_

_'I have 3 casualties!', he informed the Major-surgeon that came to help him. The other man, much older than him, patted his back and shook his head disapprovingly:_

_'Don't worry about them. And what are you doing, you shouldn't be walking!', and somehow Herzog found himself in an operation room. He wanted to ask if his wounded men were going to be treated too, but he found out his voice didn't want to come out. 'Bring the anesthesia!'_

_Herzog shook his head when they tried to put him the mask, he didn't want that; those men were his responsability and he had failed them, he had to feel pain, feel it and remember it, so that he would be more carefull in a next time. The Major-surgeon frowned:_

_'Are you sure? Do you have any idea of what happened to your legs?', and Herzog just nodded. The Major-surgeon then shrugged and began the operation. And Herzog squeezed his eyes shut and made a huge effort not to scream when he felt the doctors cutting into his flesh to look for and remove the shrapnel. He somehow didn't scream, but he couldn't stop the tears from falling down his face. It took the doctors one hour just to remove all the shrapnel from Herzog's legs, and he eventually passed out when they started to stitch his wounded arm and hand. After the surgery he was evacuated to a makeshift hospital behind the German lines, in a small and empty French village._

_He woke up the next day, in the infirmary. His left arm and hand were wrapped in bloody bandages, his right shoulder had a small gauze covering the bullet scratch and his legs were both wrapped in bandages that had huge and dark bloodstains. He felt sore and had a huge headache. A nurse came in to check him and he asked about his 3 wounded men; all of them had died. When the nurse left Herzog cried silently, grieving their loss and horribly ashamed of himself for failing like that, and he wished Erika was there to comfort him. Later that day he was visited by the General, who had been told that, in spite of his wounds, Herzog hadn't left a single man behind, and that he even carried one himself, and for that Herzog had been suggested to be awarded with the __Verwundetenabzeichen (Wound Badge) 3rd Class and an Eisernes Kreuz (Iron Cross) 2nd Class. __But Herzog begged the General not to give him the medals:_

_'I didn't bring them alive, I don't deserve medals.', he told the General, who still tried to convince him but had no luck._

_Herzog had a difficult and slow recovery, mostly because he didn't want to stay in bed; he considered there were far worse cases than him that needed his bed, that he was fine and fit for duty. He didn't want to spend his 3 months leave at home, or in some other place in Germany; he simply left the hospital when he could finally walk without limping and stayed with the rearguard of the army, helping out with the horses. Later Herzog wished he had never done that; he obviously grew found of the horses he spent more time with, grooming them, or saddling them, or walking them in the fields untouched by the mines and artillery, and he suffered a lot when any of those horses had to go to the front and didn't come back, or came back wounded and ended up dying with their heads resting on his legs._

_Besides the loss of men, the agonizing screams of wounded horses would haunt Herzog forever, too._

_The war ended with Herzog as Feldweber (Company Sergeant-Major), which was quite something at the age of 20. He was there, in the front line, when the German army surrended, and he was one of the officers who had to swallow their nationalistic pride just for the sake of their men._

_With the war over, Herzog went to Berlin and joined in an Officers Course. It was strange to be in Berlin, so close to his home-village, so close to Erika... and yet it felt like he was miles away. He told himself many times, and wrote that many times too, that all the lead time would be worth it, that when he came back they'd finally be happy together._

_He was 35 when Hitler came to power, and he was one of his most fervent supporters in the army. At that time he was quite a famous officer and both Hitler and Himmler considered him the role-model of German virtues and a Parsival of the modern times. So it was no surprise that, when the SS were given to Himmler, Herzog was among the first officers chosen to fill the superior ranks, and so he became a Standartenführer (Colonel of the SS). Hitler himself tried to convince him to accept all the medals he rightfully deserved, but Herzog refused them all.__ Herzog was also considered the perfect killing machine; he had the experience, he had the knowledge, he could shut his emotions with a frigthening ease, he was versatile, he was inspiring and he had the perfect look for a killing machine: since he had realized what the trenches were, Herzog had decided to shave his head and the rest of his body completely, to avoid fleas and lices. Not even his eyebrows survived. And he had kept that habit. So, the Standartenführer had this particular look of someone you really shouldn't disobey..._

_If Herzog had wanted, he could have been part of Hitler's «pet Generals», among some other officers of the SS. But he wasn't only an officer, he was a soldier too, so instead of staying in a safe and comfy place Herzog chose to go into battle leading his men._

_Reinhard Heydrich, who liked order and peace, was the first to suggest the SS should give an Einsatzgruppe (task force) to Herzog and send them right away to the Sudetenland*, right after their annexation in 1938. So, as a 40th anniversary present, Herzog was given the files of the 250 best young soldiers of the SS; he had to choose 80, and those would be the elite of the elite._

_Herzog wasn't very found of paperwork, so instead of reading the files he went to watch a training of those men. Then he told the sergeant in charge to line them and called him to his side. Herzog had the files in hand, but he just wanted the pictures; he already knew who to choose. So he started to call the young men by alphabetic order:_

_'I suggest you Herr Standartenführer to include Dietrich von Auttenberg; his family is very, very influent within the Party.', the sergeant suggested as he noticed Herzog ignoring Dietrich's file. Herzog frowned:_

_'He's a little...', Herzog tried to find a kind word. '..too clumsy...', he said, but the sergeant shrugged. Herzog rolled his eyes and called Dietrich. He kept choosing his men without interruptions, until he stopped at Sascha Ritter's file:_

_'Not that one! Very good fighter, but a horrible soldier. He has the worse behaviour!', the sergeant exclaimed with a grimace:_

_'I like his hair.', Herzog replayed calmly with a smile and called Sascha._

_When he had gathered his 80 men, he told the others were dismissed, including the sergeant. He studied their faces, memorizing every detail. He then started to walk back and forth, always looking at them:_

_'Hein Herzog.', he started. 'The rank is right here.', and he indicated the single oak leaf on the collar of his uniform. 'What I want you to do, gentlemen, is to grab a backback and put in there clothes, books, whatever you want to take with you; we are going to the Sudetenland. You,' and he turned on his heels, his index finger poiting at Sascha, 'stay here with me. The others are dismissed.'_

_Sascha watched as his comrades left until it was only he and Herzog. The Standartenführer liked the defiant aura around Sascha and he started to walk around the young soldier, hands behind his back:_

_'You surely know your reputation among the officers in charge around here, so I'm not bothering you with that. The point is that I liked you, so congratulations, you're now my Ordonnanz.'_

_'That's quite a way to keep an eye on me.', Sascha replayed. Herzog chuckled:_

_'I need both eyes to guide my bullets, so there's no way I'm going to keep an eye on you.', he stopped right in front of Sascha, looking at him in the eye. 'But as long as you're entretained with the absolutely boring paperwork I've accumulated, I'm sure you can't be that bad.'_

_'Want to try, really?'_

_'That or I'll skin you alive.', and Herzog's grin sent a shiver down Sascha's spine. The scoffer smile on the young soldier's lips died slowly and he just nodded. Herzog smiled again, and he actually looked like a friendly man. 'Good! Now go pack your things.'_

_They were detached to the Moravia province. They left Berlin just 3 days after Herzog chose his men and travelled in a transporting Junkers Ju 390. The young soldiers didn't know exactly how to behave, because they were used to officers shouting orders at them in each 5 minutes; Herzog was just sitting there among them, reading a book. When they landed the day was ending and they had a truck waiting for them:_

_'You can read maps, right?', Herzog asked Sascha, as he watched his men getting in the truck. Sascha nodded. 'Good. I like to keep both eyes on the road.'_

_'You are driving?', Sascha widened his eyes in surprise and followed Herzog to the front of the truck. He sat on the passanger's seat while Herzog sat on the driver's seat and started the engine:_

_'Of course I'm driving! Keep in mind: if you want something decently done, do it yourself.' and he added with a smile, 'Besides, I didn't spend all those months in the Officers Course to never drive again. That would have been an epic waste of time'_

_Sascha just chuckled and unfolded the map:_

_'What are these red dots?', he asked. Herzog had both hands on the wheel and drove away from the airport:_

_'Places we have to go. But for tonight we're staying there.', the Standartenführer answered, and there was a small village ahead, among the Moravian forest that surrounded the airport. Sascha said nothing, just kept his eyes on the map. 'Sascha, I just said we're staying there! I have no idea of how to get there!'_

_'Really?', Sascha frowned. 'Do you want me to-'_

_'Make use of the bloody map and that bloody mouth of yours, of course!'_

_'Well... you should have turned left, to get into that little road.', and Herzog stopped the truck and drove back in reversed gear, maybe too fast for his men's liking, according to the comments coming from the back of the truck and from the barrage of profanity coming from Sascha. They got in the right road and the young soldier seemed to understand Herzog really wanted his help. 'Then... turn right in 50 meters. And nothing else, the road goes straight to the village.'_

_'Good.', Herzog said contently. It was already dark when they reached the village and Herzog parked the truck near a barn. He got out the truck and Sascha followed him to the back of the truck, where Herzog told his men to come out. When they were all standing in front of him, he turned around and walked towards the barn. 'We'll stay here for tonight. Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable, I'm going to tell the owners of this lovely place that they have visitors.'_

_Herzog joined his men few minutes later, much for the young soldiers' surprise; officers don't sleep on the hay... they usually get the better places, because they are officers. However, Herzog chose a little place for himself, undressed his trench coat and uniform jacket and lay down, using his backbag as a pillow:_

_'Let us establish some rules.', he told his men, who looked at him mindfully. 'No smoking, no drinking and no women... and I let you do all the noise you want, tell all the jokes you want, sing all the songs you want, play seek-and-hide in the hay for the whole night, use all the swear words you know and invent some if you want to. You can also leave for a walk, as long as you tell me where you are going and take enough weapons and ammo.', he then covered his face with the officer cap. 'Gentlemen, have a good night. We leave before dawn.'_

_There was a perplexed silence, that was slowly broken by low whispers, that eventually grew to an animated conversation that only ended late in the night. Herzog slept through it all; if he had slept with bombs exploding not far from him, what were the voices of young men? Herzog was also the first to wake up, and his 80 men were still fast asleep. He left the barn and came back few minutes later with food for his men, then he grabbed one of the cowbells nailed to the wooden walls of the barn and shook it happily. His men changed immediately to a sitting position and looked at him, sleepy but wide-eyed:_

_'Breakfast. Hurry up.', Herzog informed and put the cowbell back to place._

_Back to the truck, Herzog drove them to the borderland. Sascha seemed to be a little more confident:_

_'What are we going to do?', he asked:_

_'There are some peace-wrecker Czechs attacking the German-speaking citizens and destroying their villages. We just have to smash them.'_

_'And how are we going to smash them?', and at this point Herzog smiled:_

_'With the power of imagination, of course!', and the Standartenführer didn't need to look away from the road to see the confused expression on his Ordonnanz's face. 'Tell me Sascha, have you ever killed a man?'_

_'No...'_

_'Do you have any idea of how to do it?'_

_'A bullet to the head...? Oh, I get it, I get it!', and Sascha waved the map in his hands excitedly. 'Imagination, like the various ways to kill someone and make that an example, right? Like hanging the traitors with a sign on their neck saying «Communist», right? That's why it's power, right? Because with fear comes respect!'_

_'Exactly.', Herzog smiled, visisbly satisfied. Sascha was still too excited to shut up, barely believing he had heard that:_

_'If I want to burn someone alive with a flame-thrower, can I?'_

_'Ja.', and the Standartenführer allowed himself to chuckle before the happy groan that escaped Sascha's mouth. The young soldier eventually managed to calm down and shut up, and only opened his mouth to tell Herzog where to go._

_They stopped in another village to have lunch, and at the end of the day they reached a military base not far from the place where they were wanted to stay. The 'base' was a big farm with several tents and armoured vehicles around it, and the barn was being used to store weaponry and ammunition. Herzog and his men stayed in a big tent and that night all the young men decided to go to sleep at the same time their Standartenführer. But still Herzog was the first one to wake up in the next morning and, after a quick breakfast, he paired and queued them:_

_'Gentlemen, we have a bunch of Czech worms to eradicate from the Earth.', he said as they walked on the roadside. 'You can do whatever you want; burn them alive, skin them alive, the classical bullet on the head... All I want from you is: fast and efficient. You start at my command and you stop at my command. I have your back and you have my back. Are we understood?'_

_'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!', the young soldiers exclaimed excitedly, not taking their eyes off their officer, with his black trench coat, a machine-gun hanging on a shoulder and a rifle hanging on the other; the most unusual sight of an officer... if not unique. __Another one of Herzog's particularities had to do with the mission reports; unlike the other officers, who'd do them alone or dictate them to someone else, Herzog always gathered his men around the typewriter and they'd do the report together and they all would sign it._

_Months gone by and Herzog's Einsatzgruppe spread cruelty and chaos in the borderlands. As the time gone by the rebels began to give up, because unlike other SS or Wehrmach units, Herzog's was completely unpredictable, and once given the chance to release the monsters within his men were unstoppable. Unstoppable, yet very well commanded; besides a few scratches, Herzog didn't lose a single man, which was a great victory._

_It was a foggy day and the Einsaztgruppe was gathered in the living room of the big farm. That was another of Herzog's «magic powers»; he always got the better accomodations for his men, and seemed really pleased when his men bothered other officers and their men, like what they were doing in that precise moment; they were playing football inside the house, celebrating the great victory from a few hours earlier, when the Wehrmacht sergeant and his 10 men had decided to move in to a tent outside. And Herzog was calmly sitting on the couch, reading a book, his head protected by a helmet just in case the ball decided to say 'hi'. And that was when he noticed Dietrich, sitting alone in a corner while everybody else was having fun chasing the ball upstairs. The Standartenführer studyed the young soldier for a moment, until he left the book and the helmet aside and stood up, made his way towards Dietrich and kneeled in front of him:_

_'Why aren't you playing with them?', Herzog asked, and the young soldier looked at him; he was indeed a wonderful piece of Aryan art, with shiny grey eyes and dark blonde hair, but he really didn't belong in a war. Dietrich wasn't a bad soldier, he was probably the most obedient one and didn't lack imagination when it came to eleminate the enemy... but he was too clumsy, too slow, too loud and too dumb (or innocent, Herzog couldn't tell exactly), and that made him extremely dangerous, for himself and for the rest of the company. He was the kind of soldier right to a propaganda poster, but not to the battlefield:_

_'They don't like me...', Dietrich mumbled and looked down. Herzog sighed; he had noticed that, that the rest of the Einsatzgruppe didn't accept Dietrich. It was perfectly normal, though, and the Standartenführer knew that Dietrich had always been the kid left aside, because he wasn't a leader, nor a jester, nor a bully... and young men always gather around a leader of bullies who has a jester, because that's the perfect company. Herzog decided to sit next to the soldier:_

_'Make them.', he suggested. Dietrich smiled bitterly:_

_'Sascha said I stopped in time at the age of 5...', he told. Herzog bit his lower lip; Sascha had been chosen by is comrades as the leader of the group, even a blind man could see that, and Herzog couldn't blame his other soldiers, because Sascha had actually the thing to be a leader. '... and they all agree.', Dietrich sighed. 'I'm not stupid, Herr Standartenführer... I know I'm in the SS because my parents have money, and I know I'm here because the sergeant in charge told you to choose me.'_

_Herzog was taken aback and, for a little while, he didn't know exactly what to say. He then put a hand on Dietrich's shoulder:_

_'Very well, you're right. I didn't want to choose you, Dietrich; you're slow, loud and stupid. You can't even throw a grenade in a straight line. But you're brave and loyal, and those are good things.', he squeezed the fragile shoulder in his hand and Dietrich whimpered a little. 'So, why don't you prove us all wrong? Why don't you show us that, although you stopped in time at the age of 5, you're good enough for this Einsatzgruppe?'_

_Dietrich looked at him in the eye and undertsood Herzog was giving him a chance nobody else had. He nodded enthusiastically:_

_'Danke schön, Herr Standartenführer!' (Thank you, Colonel, sir!), he said and stood up, ready to join the football game. Herzog allowed himself to smile and returned to the couch, put his helmet back and opened the book again. He managed to read 3 lines when someone sat next to him heavily. He didn't need to look to know it was Sascha, because Sascha had that terrible habit of throwing himself over the places where he intended to sit:_

_'I saw what you did there.', Sascha said. He was smiling. 'Did you tell him you'd have a chat with me and make me stop treating him like a child?'_

_'Of course not. Keep doing that, he has to grow up somehow, even if that consists on dealing with someone as annoying as you.'_

_'Come on, what did you tell him? Look at him now, he even got the ball! Had the ball...'_

_'I told him to prove himself worthy. Look at him, I bet he couldn't even play in the mud like a normal child!', Herzog closed his book and finally looked at Sascha. 'And you should stop nosing around, Sascha...'_

_'I'm checking on the well-being of my comrades, that's all!', the Ordonnanz replayed dramatically. Then his face became serious. 'Why did you talk to him?'_

_'Why do you question every little thing I do?'_

_'Because I'm your Ordonnanz!'_

_'If I recall, you didn't want to...'_

_'You're getting old and messing things up, I've always wanted to be your Ordonnanz!', they both chuckled. 'Come on, tell me...', and Herzog sighed. He looked over the couch's back and noticed that the football game had turned into a rugby game that was slowly crawling upstairs. Dietrich was actually fighting hard to keep the ball. The Standartenführer then looked at Sascha, sitting right next to him, but when he began to speak his eyes looked to some point over the young soldier's blonde hair, like he always did when Sascha made him speak about too personal things. That was one of the reasons why he liked Sascha so much; Herzog wasn't much of a talker, especially when it came to private matters, but Sascha somehow made him speak, and it actually felt good to talk and be heard, and it sometimes even made the Standartenführer feel lighter. Besides, he knew he could trust his extremelly annoying Ordonnanz, because Sascha never told the others things they weren't supposed to know:_

_'Sascha, there are times when you need someone to tell you you can make it. No matter how old you are, or the situation you're in. When I had your age I had no officer to tell us, to tell me, we were going to be fine. Of course they told us we were going to win the war, but as the time gone by and things became worse, no one was there to give us hope.', Herzog removed the helmet and placed it over his legs. 'A perfect German does never feel scared, or tired, and never has a moment of weakness; good for them. I'm German, but I'm not perfect. Dietrich is not perfect too, but maybe one day he will be. And even me, maybe some day I'll finally be a perfect German. But for now I'm just me, and I've had your age and I've been in a war, I've seen my childhood friends die one by one until there was only me, and I never had someone to give me that little push.', he finally looked at Sascha. 'And I don't want my men to go through it.'_

_'But the other officers who fought in the Great War don't to this kind of things.'_

_'Because they forgot what they are.', and Herzog grinned bitterly, rising a hairless eyebrow. 'I'm not just an officer, I'm a soldier too.'_

_The rugby game was moving downstrairs again, in all its glorious fuss. Sascha grabbed a pillow from the couch and hugged it:_

_'You are quite something.', he said, and this time Herzog smiled and covered his head with the helmet again._


	12. Chapter 12

_In 1939 Herzog and his Einsatzgruppe were moved to Poland just a few days before the absolute victory of the German army. The older soldier of the Einsatzgruppe was 20, and the younger was 18, but they were already considered heroes and the real elite of the elite._

_Poland was a little different from Moravia and Herzog understood it the second he stepped on Polish soil; the political situation was different from the one in the Sudetenland, and those people were not Nazi supporters who were actually happy to see them around. So, the first thing Herzog did when he came out of the airplane, in Danzig, was to keep his officer cap in an inside pocket of his trench coat and put a helmet on his head:_

_'Gentlemen, you know the rules; pair, queue and move. I want you focused and ready to fire, are we understood?', he asked his men as they lined in front of him:_

_'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!', they answered. Herzog nodded and adjusted the backback on his back and the machine-gun and rifle on his shoulders:_

_'Vorwärts, marsch!', he ordered. They went on foot to Warsaw and found little resistence, but the one they found was fierce. Still Herzog didn't lose a single man and they were received as heroes in Warsaw by their German comrades. In the city, the Standartenführer decided to establish his head-quarters in a hotel, and it was with great joy that his men expulsed some of the previous clients and occupied their rooms. Their mission now consisted on patrolling Warsaw and the surrounding villages._

_In a winter day, during one of those patrols, Herzog's men were nearly caught in an ambush; Dietrich saved them that day, when he commented that the silence in the woods was scary. When he heard that, Herzog suddenly realized it was indeed an unnatural silence and they all ran to the nearest village, with 100 men chasing them. They had to deal with the villagers too that, when noticed the Einsatzgruppe was running from Polish people, tried to help their compatriots. So Herzog had to send 40 men to deal with the insurgent villagers and kept 40 men with him, in a small road between the woods and the village. Even though the Polish men who were chasing them were more, all they had were knives and rifles, and many of them died as soon as they were in the fire range of the German machine-guns. The others, who were just injured, were taken by Herzog and his group to the village. The situation in the village had been easily solved with a few shots, and the German soldiers had gathered the small population in front of the church:_

_'Is anyone hurt?', Herzog asked when the two groups met:_

_'No, Herr Standartenführer.', Sascha, who had leaded the group in the village, answered. Herzog nodded; so the only wounded had been Dietrich and Wilhelm, who had been shot in the arm and shoulder. Then some of the soldiers circled the church while the others shoved the people inside, and then Herzog set it on fire._

_During the first week of 1940 there were other rebellions in the small villages around Warsaw, and Herzog's Einsatzgruppe annihilated them all. However, these rebels had good rifles and machie-guns and they were very fond of urban conflicts, if fighting in a semi-burnt village can be considered that. During the last of those conflicts Herzog saw one of his men being shot in the chest and realized there was a sniper in one of the houses behind. Herzog himself took care of that sniper, running directly to the house where he thought the sniper was and getting in, wrathful. While running in the street, he didn't even notice the bullets flying close to his body. But once inside the house he was careful, and instead of using the machine-gun or the rifle he used his Mauser, that was easier to maneuver in tight spaces. The sniper knew he was in the house and came downstairs to try to shoot him, but Herzog was faster and shot him first, in the wrist of the hand that was holding the rifle._

_He then dragged the sniper outside, where he met his men; the other rebells were all dead:_

_'Is Erich dead?', Herzog asked Sascha, who nodded sadly. Herzog offered the wounded sniper a grin:_

_'Get me some knives.', he told him men, who gave him the knives they found in the rebells' bodies. The village had a dirt ground and Herzog nailed the sniper's hands to the ground with the knives. The Polish man screamed at the top of his lungs and the Einsatzgruppe cheered. Then Herzog used his SS dagger to skin the sniper alive, completely deaf to the man's pleas and cries... that only ceased when he died for bloodloss. When that happened Herzog was still skinning his chest; he had skinned the man's neck and right arm and hand like he was peeling a potato, with surgical precision._

_He stood up, blood dripping from his bare hands, and moved towards Erich's dead body:_

_'Let's hope nothing eats that swine before the other swines find him.', he told his men as he lifted the dead body and carried it._

_That night Herzog locked himself in his room and took a cold water shower. The wrath was gone, and all he could feel was shame; he had lost another soldier, he should have done things differently! He left the shower and checked if his uniform was already dry; he had washed it and left if near the fireplace. He got dressed and lay down on the bed, looking at the ceiling._

_Then someone knocked at the door. He squeezed his eyes shut. That someone knocked again. Herzog cursed and went to open the door. Sascha got in, carrying a bowl of stew:_

_'You didn't show up for dinner.', the young soldier accused, placing the bowl on a nearby table, next to the typewriter. Herzog made his way to the bed and lay down again:_

_'I'm not hungry.', he mumbled. Sascha took a seat on the bed, next to him:_

_'You've been too quiet since we got here, you didn't have dinner with us and we're not writing the report. And you also need to write a death certificate and make sure they give Erich a medal.'_

_'Do that yourself, you're here to take care of my paperwork.', the Standartenführer grumbled and turned around, leaving Sascha facing his back. They spent a few minutes in silence, until Sascha shook his head and spoke again:_

_'It was not your fault...', the young soldier hesitated, then added. '... Herzog.', and watched as Herzog's body tensed. But it wasn't the fact that a soldier had adressed to him using his last name that bothered him. He glanced over his shoulder, to Sascha, and then looked away again:_

_'How old are you?', he asked. Sascha frowned:_

_'I'll be 19 in a week.', he answered, and smiled. 'And you're invited to the party and I was thinking about baking a cake and-'_

_'Do you know how old I am?', Herzog cut him, not really with the patience he usually had for Sascha:_

_'No...', and the smile was still in Sascha's lips. 'You look ageless, but since you're a Standartenführer I'd say 50-something.'_

_'Wrong. I'll be 41 in August.', he turned around to look at Sascha. 'I spent two years of my life in the trenches, and I only left them in two occasions; when I was injured and had to be evacuated and when the army surrended. I was 20 and was a Feldweber. I spent the rest of life since then in Berlin, studying and training to be an officer.', at this point Herzog's voice was a whisper, filled with badly contained anger. 'I should have thought about the sniper, I should have considered that! I should have been more careful, if I had made a different approach Erich wouldn't have died!', and he looked away from Sascha's blue eyes to his hands, looking at the bloodstains only he could see; blood of the men he had lost._

_Sascha crossed his legs over the matress and moved a little closer to Herzog, looking at him comprehensively:_

_'Back in Moravia you said you weren't perfect.', he recalled. 'You're still not perfect. Losing men in a war is perfectly normal, everybody does that, so no one is perfect.'_

_'I should have known!', Herzog hissed, eyes wide open, and he held both of Sascha's hands. 'I am an officer, you are my men, my responsability! My mission is to keep you alive and take you back home safe and in one piece!'_

_'Sshh, you're too young to blame yourself!', Sascha exclaimed, trying to ease the mood. He managed to make Herzog smile a bit, even though it was a sad smile. 'I'm serious, that's not good for your head.'_

_'Sure... Opa.' (Grandpa), and this time Herzog's smile was wider. Sascha narrowed his eyes:_

_'Now you think you're funny, uh?', he asked, gesturing dramatically. 'Well, you're not! You're boring.'_

_'I'm not boring, you're having the time of your life with me.', Herzog sighed and looked at the ceiling again, feeling a little lighter and glad that he had someone to talk to:_

_'No, you're boring... look at you, Herr Fop!', and this time Herzog had to laugh hard. 'Reading, playing chess and drawing trees, that's all you can do... and you call yourself «funny» or «amusing»? That's why you don't have a ring on your finger, women like funny men. Like me.'_

_'You're not a man, you can't even grow a proper beard!'_

_'Look at you, Herr Bald!', and this time they both laughed. 'Now seriously, why aren't you married?'_

_'Have I not told you to stop nosing around?'_

_'You should grow some eyebrows, women like eyebrows!'_

_Herzog let out a fake suffering sigh and changed to a sitting position, rubbing his forehead. He felt like he was starting to talk too much, that he shouldn't have this kind of conversation... but he couldn't deny he enjoyed Sascha's company. And besides all the banter, Sascha was a highly trustable soldier and, when the Einsatzgruppe had to spilt, he would be the one leading the other half and he would do exactly like Herzog would. To be honest, after all those months, Sascha felt like a right arm. The Standartenführer shrugged:_

_'I do have someone in mind.', he confessed. Sascha widened his eyes. 'Don't look at me like I suddenly grew another head!'_

_'Really? Do you actually know a woman?', and before this Herzog blushed:_

_'Don't be stupid, Sascha... everybody knows a woman.'_

_'Not Dietrich.', the young soldier giggled. 'Anyway... that's good! I was wondering if you knew where babies come from!'_

_'Oh my gods, this is not happening...', and Herzog hid his face on his hands, trying not to laugh. 'Sascha, in case you didn't notice, I'm your Standartenführer!'_

_'And you can't imagine how grateful I am for that.', Sascha replayed seriously. And they stared at each other for a while, and Herzog frowned. 'When I grow up I want to be like you.'_

_'You don't...'_

_'Can't you just shut up and let me woo you?', and Herzog had to laugh again. Sascha smiled, delighted. 'Much better than staring at the ceiling, blaming yourself for something you have absolutely no fault, don't you think?'_

_'Fine, you win.'_

_'Good. Now, you eat and I write the death certificate.', Sascha said and stood up, making his way to the table. He handed the bowl to Herzog, sat at the table and started to type. 'By now I already know by heart your fancy writing style. You do like Romantism, don't you?'_

_'It's not fancy, it's... erudite.', Herzog corrected, eating the stew. Sascha made a funny face. 'And when you are done with that, write a letter to the General; I need a soldier to replace Erich.'_

_'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.'_

_And for a while the sound of the typewriter filled the silence. When Herzog was finished he looked at the empty bowl in his hands, and he moved from the bed to a small couch near the table:_

_'Why?', was all he asked. Sascha had finished the death certificate, handed it to Herzog and put another paper sheet on the typewriter. Then he smiled, typing again:_

_'If I was an officer, I'd surely like it if my soldiers told me that I had no fault if something went wrong. I'd like to know that they're with me, no matter what.', he stopped typing and looked at the Standartenführer. 'You know that, right? That we're all with you. You do deserve our support, Herzog.'_

_Herzog just nodded, still looking at the empty bowl; he felt touched and glad there was this friendship between him and his men. Especially Sascha._

_In early 1940 there was another rebellion near the German-Soviet border, and Herzog drove his men to the place. It was a village, again, and this time Herzog was much more careful when he divided his men in two groups and they attacked. The Standartenführer was afraid of losing someone else, so he decided that this time Dietrich was coming with him; the young soldier had become quite talented with the flame-thrower. That day was particularly cold and it was snowing, and that only made Herzog more nervous; his men didn't have the snow camos, and the black uniforms** were ridiculously outstanding in the Polish snow._

_There was movement behind the window of a nearby house and Herzog fired his machine-gun:_

_'Take cover, take cover!', he shouted at his men, before the enemy retaliated. He saw something, certainly a grenade, being thrown out of the window of another house and he jumped to the ground and rolled under a hay wain at the same time the grenade exploded. He didn't lose time lying on the ground and stood up again, firing the machine-gun to every window. 'Dietrich, burn the bloody bastards alive!', and it was with great joy that Dietrich started to set all the houses on fire, while his comrades circled them to make sure no one would leave them. In urban combats, setting the houses on fire was the easiest and fastest way of finishing it._

_Herzog walked next to Dietrich while he fired the flame-thrower happily. They ended up meeting the rest of the Einsatzgruppe near a house farther than the others, where the soldiers hand found hidden women, children and old people:_

_'This one speaks German!', Sascha informed Herzog, showing him a young woman he was holding by the hair. The Standartenführer frowned, looking at the bleeding gash in Sascha's arm. 'She said we were monsters!'_

_'Oh, are we?', Herzog asked, looking at the gathered civilians. His other men joined them. He looked at the woman. 'Tell them to start digging.', but she said nothing. He then chuckled and shook his head. 'I'm sorry, I forgot my education. Sascha, let her go.', which Sascha did, but before the woman could say something or do anyhting Herzog punched her, and her jaw and nose cracked. She fell on the snow and he allowed his men to kick her. Then he turned to face the scared civilians. 'Dig.', he ordered and gestured._

_Those people digged a huge mass grave with their bare hands, then were fuzilated and thrown into it. The woman who spoke German had been beaten to a bloody pulp and the Einsatzgruppe made their way back to the truck:_

_'What happened to your arm?', Herzog asked Sascha. The young soldier had bandaged the wound while the civilians were digging the mass grave, and now the bandage had a huge and dark bloodstain. But what worried Herzog the most was Sascha's quietude:_

_'One of those little pieces of shit had a bayonet.', the younger soldier replayed with a smile. The Standartenführer started the engine, frowning:_

_'Watch your tongue, young man...'_

_'I'm dying and that's all you have to tell me? I thought we were friends!', and Sascha pretended to cry. Herzog let out a sigh; apparently his Ordonnanz was fine..._

_Herzog left his men at their «hotel-head-quarters» and then drove Sascha to the military hospital, a few blocks away. The young soldier was clutching to the seat like his life depended on it:_

_'Slow down, will you?', he asked Herzog when the Standartenführer nearly ran over a man who was crossing the street. 'Or at least aim to the Jews!'_

_'Out of my way, Untermenschen!' (sub-humans), the SS officer shouted through the window to the people in the street. They finally reached the hospital and Herzog stopped the truck right in front of the door:_

_'Shouldn't you leave this place to the ambulances?', Sascha asked as he slowly got out of the truck and followed Herzog into the hospital:_

_'Shouldn't the Wehrmacht do something to deserve a place to park their ambulances?', Herzog snapped and ignored the receptionist, going straight to the surgery rooms. He eventually noticed Sascha wasn't managing to keep up with him, so they stopped and he told Sascha to sit on the floor and wait, while he left to get him a doctor. When he came back the doctor took them to a minor surgery room to stitch Sascha's arm:_

_'Aren't you going to anesthetize him?', Herzog asked, realizing that wasn't in the doctor's plans. The man gave him an ugly frown:_

_'It's just a scratch.', he answered. Herzog gave the doctor the ugliest frown of all and the other man grew paler. 'But... now that I look closely... he might have lost some blood... Yes, I will anesthetize him.', and he left to go get the bottle with the product and the mask. Sascha looked sadly at his Standartenführer:_

_'You are embarassing me! I'm an SS soldier, I'm the best! A needle with a thread doesn't scare me!', he hissed. 'Just because you have a trauma with being stitched doesn't mean I can't handle that! And the man was right, it's just a scratch!'_

_'You are poor and ungrateful.', Herzog mumbled, crossing his arms and turning his back at Sascha._

_When the small surgery was done, the Standartenführer had to carry Sascha back to the truck; it hadn't been a total anesthesia, just enough to leave him a little... sleepy. Sascha was talking, though, and he went on an almost endless rant about how his legs felt funny and weak. When they reached the hotel Herzog went to check on his other men; they were all gathered in the dinning room singing military marches. Then, with an arm wrapped around Sascha's waist, he took the young soldier to his room:_

_'You are overprotective, you know that?', Sascha slurred when they were climbing the stairs. 'Fucking carpet, trying to make me trip!'_

_'It was a step. Maybe if you didn't drag your feet...'_

_'You are over protective, you know that? Don't igonre, I mean, ignore me!', but Herzog just chuckled and opened the door of Sascha's room. 'Fucking anesthesia, that's why you never took it, right?'_

_'Yes yes, it was all part of an evil plan to make you look like an idiot.', the Standartenführer helped him to lay on the bed and to take off the boots. Sascha fell on his back and curled in a ball. 'You're not going to sleep with the jacket and tie, no way! And don't lay on that arm, if you break the stitches I'll stitch you myself, and you won't like it!'_

_'You're a butter-heart, I love you...', Sascha mumbled while Herzog tried to undress him the jacket and remove the tie. The Standartenführer rolled his eyes:_

_'Stop with the non-sense.', he replayed, but the young soldier was already sleeping._

_In the next morning Herzog was sitting on a chair near the bed when Sascha woke up. The young soldier looked at him with one eye open and a grimace:_

_'I feel dizzy...', he grunted. 'Please tell me I didn't say anything stupid...'_

_'Good morning for you, too.', the Standartenführer saluted, tilting his head. Sascha hid his face under the pillow:_

_'I feel sick, stupid anesthesia...', he whimpered:_

_'I'm not giving you breakfast. Let me see that arm.'_

_'Arm's fine...', but Sascha stretched his arms towards Herzog, anyway. The Standartenführer removed the bandage and observed the gash; it was a little swollen around the stitches and Herzog pressed it lightly. 'I thought we were friends, stop hurting me!'_

_'I need to desinfect this.'_

_'You should see my father.', Sascha uncovered his head and changed to a sitting position, looking at Herzog with a sad smile. 'He's a Psychiatrist. He could help you with this craze of yours; not that I don't appreciate your concern, but your over protectiveness is not healthy.'_

_Herzog was going to reply that, but someone knocked at the door and Dietrich peeked inside:_

_'Herr Standartenführer, there's a delivery for you.', he said, then smiled at Sascha. 'How are you?'_

_'I'm dying...', Sascha replayed. Herzog cast him a reproving look, stood up and followed Dietrich downstairs. The hotel had a big lobby with full-length windows and the Einsatzgruppe was gathered there, making it difficult for everyone else to get in or out and obviously enjoying making someone else's life difficult. Herzog joined his men; they were circling a young SS soldier and asking him how many Untermenschen he had killed. The young soldier was visibly embarassed:_

_'Heil Hitler.', Herzog saluted, and the young soldier replayed shyly. The Standartenführer then looked at his grinning men and shook his head. 'Go get Sascha a «get well soon» gift, will you?'_

_'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!', the Einsatzgruppe saluted and ran upstairs to get their weapons. Herzog then looked at his «delivery», Erich's replacement; he had brown eyes and blonde hair, an elegant body and a friendly expression. The Standartenführer then noticed he had the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, and he didn't even had his tie; so, that's why the young soldier was looking at him like he was a piece of that strange modern art:_

_'Herzog, Hein.', Herzog said. 'Come with me. What is your name?'_

_'Kohl, Fritz.', the soldier replayed, following him upstairs:_

_'Age.'_

_'18.', and Herzog smiled sadly:_

_'You have just arrived, right?'_

_'Exacty. 30th SS Infantry Regiment, we arrived yesterday to Warsaw.'_

_'You can dress a wound, right?', and the Standartenführer opened the door of Sascha's room and got in, his new soldier following close. Sascha, still lying on the bed, looked at them curiously. 'Erich's replacement. Keep an eye on him, Sascha.'_

_'Sure.', Sascha replayed and Herzog left them._

_Herzog knew Sascha was perfect to welcome someone; he was quite talented to show people what was their place in the Einsatzgruppe. But he really wasn't expecting Sascha to adopt Fritz like that, and he could barely believe when he found out Fritz was the missing jester the company needed; every joke Sascha started and every prank he suggested, Fritz would complete the joke and help him with the prank. __Herzog couldn't do much besides laughing, especially when the pranks victimized other officers who tried to stick their noses into the Einsatzgruppe's businesses. Besides, Fritz was a good soldier._

_During the Autumn they erased a particularly annoying village from the Polish map. When they came back Herzog decided not to bother his joyful soldiers with the report and thought it was a very good time to write Erika; he hadn't written her in a few months. So he went to his room, locked the door (something he did only when he wrote her) and sat at the table, picking up a sheet of paper and a pen to write; Herzog always asked her if she and her family were fine, even though he knew she couldn't answer. In that letter he told her he and his Einsatzgruppe would go back to Berlin in December, and that he was planning on finally meeting her again. When he finished writing, Herzog crossed his arms over the table and rested his chin on them, allowing himself to smile like a fool in love. __He was one afterall, right?_

_In the following morning he left the hotel without having breakfast just to deliver the letter for Erika in the military post office without having Sascha asking him «Who are you writing to?». When he came back he went to his room to leave there his officer cap and trench coat... and that was when he noticed it, looking at him shamelessly in the middle of the room, between the bed and the table; a rat, a big and fat and ugly Polish rat! Herzog narrowed his eyes and the rat hid under the couch:_

_'You little...', he snarled, walking backwards to the door. He closed the door of his room and trotted to Sascha's room, at the end of the second floor. He knocked, but no one answered and the door was locked. Probably Sascha was still sleeping. Herzog removed a bunch of keys from the pocket of his breeches, opened the door and got in. He was about to start talking about his most bizarre encounter while circling the bed to face Sascha... but then he froze, looking with big, wide blue eyes at his Ordonnanz._

_And Sascha sustained his stare, visibly scared yet defiant, pulling Fritz closer to his chest. Fritz was still sleeping._

_The Standartenführer looked at them, blinking slowly, until his neck started to redden. With a grimace,he pulled a chair close to the bed and sat heavily, crossing a leg. He then opened his mouth to speak, lowly, and his voice came out as a series of very, very angry growls:_

_'Sascha, what have you done?', he asked. Sascha bit his lower lip, still looking at Herzog, and he used the arm he had wrapped around Fritz's waist to pull the younger soldier even closer. 'What have you done, my big idiot?'_

_'You know what I did, you don't need to ask.', Sascha replayed. Herzog's eyes grew even wider and Sascha flinched. 'I... we... we did nothing wrong! I... I started, he has no fault in this!'_

_'I don't want to know what you did, you idiot!', Herzog's voice was louder. 'I want to know how could you be so stupid to the point of doing it!'_

_'I-'_

_'What if someone else had entered this room? Do you know what would happen, do you? You'd be taken outside, naked, shot in the head and then hung with a sign on your necks! Is that what you want, Sascha? Is it?'_

_'You'll wake him up...', the Ordonnanz mumbled in a shaky voice:_

_'Do I look like I care?', Herzog growled, and Fritz eventually woke up, first confused, but when he saw the Standartenführer he widened his eyes and tried to hide under the blankets. 'Don't you dare hiding, young man! Look at me! Both of you, look at me!', which they did; Fritz was already crying and Sascha was close. Herzog wanted to punch them both, but he ended up doing that to the mattress. 'Sascha, you told me once you had a girlfriend! How could this happen?'_

_Sascha grew paler and Fritz glanced over his shoulder, and Herzog understood the younger soldier didn't know that. That only made him angrier and he bent forwards, grabbed Sascha's chin and squeezed it painfully:_

_'How could you be this stupid, how?', he hissed, raising his hairless eyebrows. Sascha didn't answer, just looked at him. Herzog shook his head and let go of Sascha's chin. He stood up and raised a threatening index finger. 'This...', his finger was pointing the two young soldiers in the bed. '... is not going to happen again. Ever!'_

_'You can't tell me who I sleep with or not!', Sascha exclaimed. Herzog offered him a grin:_

_'Believe me, I can. And you should consider what I've just told you, it would be a shame if little Fritz had to go back to his Regiment... that will go to France in the next month!', the grin was gone and Herzog's voice was cold and sharp. 'I hope we are understood, gentlemen.', the Standartenführer made his way to the door and he heard Fritz sobbing. He opened the door:_

_'Thank you for ruining this, really!', Sascha yelled at him. Herzog locked the door and went back to his room, completely forgotten about the rat and his empty stomach. He sat on the bed and ran his hands through his shaved head, laughing sadly; what he had witnessed didn't disgut him, it just hurted. Hurted a lot; why didn't Sascha tell him, he would have helped him without a second thought! Sascha's friendship and loyalty were much more important that the Führer! Wasn't that what one of the things German superiority was about, the highest moral values? His moral values told him to do anything for his soldiers. He massaged his temples, tiredly, let out a sigh and looked around... and noticed the rat on his table:_

_'Neineineineinein, not the bloody papers!', he hissed, throwing his dagger at the rat. But the rat escaped... Herzog laughed nervously, stood up and left. He came back later, after eating breakfast, and with a broom; he was going to kill that rat, but he obviously wasn't going to waste bullets with it._

_So he kneeled on the floor and tried to hit it with the broomstick, under the couch. But what if the rat ran towards him on the broomstick and bit him? Herzog stopped what he was doing and decided he needed to assure his security first; maybe if he wore his gloves... but would the leather protected him from those teeth?, or maybe he should make a trap... but how would he make one? Then suddenly someone knocked at the door:_

_'Ja.', he said absently, looking to the hiding place of the rat. He heard the door opening, steps, and the door closing and locking. He looked away, hoping the rat wouldn't move from under the couch, to see who had came in. Sascha was standing near the door, already dressed, his hair a usual mess and his head low. Herzog sighed again; that was the day! That was the day to try his patience! But lucky Sascha, he was endlessly patient! The Standartenführer stood up and put the broom aside. 'I presume you want to talk.', and Sascha looked at him, with puffy reddened eyes, and Herzog concluded he didn't want to see Sascha like that again. For the first time since they had met, the SS soldier seemed embarassed:_

_'I want to apologize... for my behaviour.', he mumbled. 'I'm in no position of-'_

_'If you are going to insinuate I'm giving you and Fritz to the Gestapo... you better shut up before I shove that broom down your throat.', Herzog snarled angrily, and Sascha flinched. 'Did you really think I was going to do that, my little bastard?'_

_'No... but... you seemed angry...', Sascha's eyes filled with tears again. 'I'm... I'm sorry, Herr Standartenführer! It wasn't supposed to be like that.'_

_'You haven't seen me angry, and I hope you never will.', Herzog rolled his eyes and went to sit on the bed, tapping the empty space beside him. Sascha followed him sheepishly and sat. The Standartenführer studied Sascha for a while, until he let out another sigh and rubbed his temples again. 'I'm just going to ask you this once and I want you to be honest.'_

_'Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.'_

_'Do you like men?', and before this Sascha blushed and shook his head. 'Sascha...'_

_'I don't like men! It was just Fritz, that stupid kid is adorable!', and Herzog widened his eyes:_

_'You can't do that with someone just because you think them adorable!'_

_''It's not only that!', Sascha was red as a tomato. 'It's more... I just... I just don't have such a wide chivalrous vocabulary like you...'_

_'You better develop one!', Herzog's time to redden. 'Why didn't you tell me about the two of you?', and Sascha looked down and started to fidget with his fingers. 'Don't you trust me?', Herzog sounded hurt and Sascha looked at him again, sadly:_

_'It's not that! It's not like I've been plotting this since Fritz joined us, it just... it happened! We were planning to prank one of the Wehrmach guys and I just... I was stupid, I'm sorry I was stupid!', Herzog frowned and Sascha sighed. 'I don't actually love him. I might, but it's not that kind of love... I do like him, he's my best friend, I'd give my life for him!'_

_'How can you do that with someone you don't love?', the Standartenführer had never understood why people did this, now sounded like a good opportunity to learn. Sascha pulled his own hair:_

_'I love him but I don't! Goddamit Herzog, it's complicated, you're worse than Dietrich!'_

_'If it's complicated then explain it to me, because I do want to understand what went through that thick head of yours!'_

_'Fine, horses! You like horses, you told me that. You like them so much that you don't want to ride them, right?', and Herzog nodded. 'Yet you do every little thing you can to be close to them, right? I saw you the other day talking to the Regiment horses!', Herzog nodded again. 'That's it, I like Fritz just how you like horses! I know I can't have him, just as you know you can't ride them because they're too majestic for you, right?', Herzog nodded again. 'Yesterday... yesterday I got a bit out of control... maybe a lot... He did nothing to stop me, though! Don't look at me like that!'_

_The Standartenführer raised an eyebrow, then shook his head and looked away from his Ordonnanz. They spent some time in silence, until Sascha spoke again:_

_'I do trust you, Herzog... I really wanted to tell you...', his voice was shaky and Herzog looked at his blue eyes, filled with tears again. 'You're just... you're so perfect, you do everything right... I just wanted to be like you.'_

_'You don't want to be like me, and I'm not perfect. I've done a lot of wrong things.', Herzog looked away from Sascha again. 'If you want to do everything right... you should have told me.'_

_'I'm sorry...', the young soldier looked down and crossed his arms. The Standartenführer bent his neck backwards and felt it snap:_

_'And you should have told Fritz about your girlfriend, waiting for you in Berlin.'_

_'I don't even like her, it was all an evil plan from my mother! She's boring and dumb as fuck, but my mother wants me to marry her because she's rich!', Sascha whimpered sadly.'Can you believe this people, they have no morals! That's why I like you so much, I'm sure you'd never make your son marry someone because they're rich!', Herzog just smiled sadly, but his smile died as soon as Sascha bursted into tears. 'Fritz hates me... I ruined everything! I know I behave like an idiot but I wanted it to be special for him!'_

_'Stop crying...', Herzog mumbled and pulled his Ordonnanz to an awkward hug, and he suddenly felt extremely guilty; he shouldn't have reacted like that, he should have stayed calm and he really shouldn't have mentioned Sascha's girlfriend. He bit his lower lip. 'I'm sorry, I messed up...'_

_'You really did, you bloody first times wrecker...', Sascha sobbed against his shoulder. 'But I messed up more than you.'_

_'We both messed up.', Herzog suggested with a smile, and he felt the young soldier smile too:_

_'We both messed up.', he agreed. Then Sascha's smile was gone. 'Fritz hates me... he just left and didn't even let me explain, he locked himself in the room and doesn't want to talk to me.'_

_'Give him a little time to cool down.', Herzog suggested and made a note to self; never stay in a hotel again, nope!, from that day on they'd stay in a house, because the less privacy the best! Sascha just nodded and pulled away from him, drying the tears to the back of his hand:_

_'You know a lot, how come that you're not married?', he asked. Herzog made a face:_

_'Not your business.'_

_'You're not even married to the Waffen, how?', but this time Herzog smiled. He pulled a chain fron under his shirt and showed Sascha his dog tag and his SS-Ehrenring (SS Honour Ring). 'Ah! For a moment I thought they were actually stupid not to give you one. You'll get the sword too?'_

_'I have no idea.', Herzog slipped the dog tag and the ring under his shirt again. 'You have to sort things out with Fritz, are we understood?'_

_'I know I have...', Sascha looked down again, smiling with no joy. 'He means a lot to me. Would... would you really send him back to his Regiment?'_

_'I would, to keep you both safe.'_

_'If someone finds out you'll be in serious troubles...'_

_'Do I look like I care?', and Sascha looked at him and shook his head. 'Good.'_

_The Standartenführer stood up and felt lighter. He would have forgotten the rat again, if Sascha hadn't asked:_

_'Why did you get in my room like that? And why were you kneeled with a broom when I came in?'_

_And that was how Sascha ended up helping Herzog to chase the rat; the Ordonnanz just had to scare it so that it would run to another place, and Herzog just had to hit it before it reached the new hidding place. After several failed attempts and after almost all the furnishings were left upside down Herzog finally hit the rat with the broom. He then grabbed the tip of its tail and took it to the lobby, to show everybody the wonders of Polish hygiene._

_They moved to a little house out of the city in that same day, after killing the hotel owner, managers and all the clients and setting the building on fire._

_Some weeks after the «Sascha incident» Herzog noticed that everything seemed normal between the blue eyed and the brown eyed soldier. He felt curious about that, but he also felt it was none of his business, so he was just glad for them. He also had to attend to a few briefings about the development of the war in the western front and he decided to take Sascha with him:_

_'It's not my birthday.', the young soldier stated as they left the last briefing and walked back to their head-quarters. It was snowing ligthly and they both shoved their gloved hands into their pockets. 'And it's not Yule!'***_

_'No, it isn't.', Herzog agreed. 'But I want to make you officially my second-in-command. And I want to see something else in your collar, besides the runes.'_

_'Stop that, you'll make me blush!'_

_'We'll have a 3 months leave, then I'll try to make us stay around in Berlin and you're making the Officer Course for __SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain). It will be another 3 months, so I think I'll manage to keep the Einstatzgruppe around.'_

_'Big bastard, you're making me cry! And fuck, it's cold and the friggin' tears are freezing on my face!'_

_'I'm glad we agree on this.'_

_That night they were all gathered around the fireplace in the living room of the small house that was their head-quarters. Herzog was reading a book, unaware of his men's conversations. Then one of his soldiers, Jürgen, called him:_

_'Herr Standartenführer?', and Herzog closed his book and looked at him. 'You're the only officer around without medals. How can that be possible?'_

_'Because I don't deserve them.', the Stadartenführer replayed calmly:_

_'How?', another of his men, Hans, asked truely shocked. Herzog sighed:_

_'Because for me, a piece of metal is worthless when compared to the lives of the men I couldn't save.', he answered and opened his book again. His men went silent for a while, and it had to be Sascha to break the respectful silence:_

_'So, can we hug you?'_

_In December 1940 they went back to Berlin by airplane. Everbody was excited and Herzog had a difficult time trying to contain the idiot smile that wanted to spread on his face, but he somehow managed. He could barely believe that, after all those years, Erika and he would finally be together._

_They arrived to Berlin at the nightfall, and everybody ran to catch the train (those who were not from Berlin) or the tram to go home. Herzog, with the backbag on his back, made his way on foot to the barracks where he had lived since 1918. He had heard about the Allied bombings on the city, but that part of Berlin hadn't been affected. However, as he passed near the Zoo, he saw the construction works of a Flakturm (Flak tower) and couldn't help but praise the Führer for his most brilliant idea to defend the city from the Allied scum._

_He managed to go to his old room practically unnoticed; he wasn't very found of celebrations. Besides, he had more important things to do, like bathing decently and shaving. And he finally allowed himself to smile like an idiot, feeling happier and lighter than ever. That night he could barely sleep and he thought himself a fool for such teenage behaviour, but he eventually fell alseep while thinking about the wedding, because there had to be a wedding. And if Erka didn't mind, he was going to invite all his 80 glorious soldiers. And Sascha would be his best man._

_On the following day he woke up earlier than the usual, had another bath just for the sake of it, swallowed breakfast in the canteen and then made his way to the downtown; he was going to buy Erika a ring. In fact, he could buy her whatever she wanted; he had made quite a fortune during his career, and he would only stop the day a bullet took his life. So, he bought her a silver ring with diamonds, and after hiding the little box in an inside pocket of his trench coat he made his way to the countryside, to his little home village._

_It was strange to go back, after all those years. He wondered if his parents were still alive, and if they would recognize him. But he had never written them, so maybe (if they still existed...) they thought he was dead. And probably the whole village too. There was only Erika, for him. It took him a while, but he finally reached the village, surrounded by fields covered in a thin layer of snow. With large and confident strides, he crossed the village towards Erika's house; it was a big Fachwerkhaus, the biggest in the village, near wheat fields and pastures for the sheep. His heart was racing like it had never raced before. The gate was open and he had to bit his lips not to smile._

_Herzog crossed the yard and stopped in front of the door. He rang the bell and waited. He was sure his heartbeat could be heard outside of his body. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the door was open. Erika opened it, and he finally allowed himself to smile and felt tears in the corner of his eyes; she was even more beautiful than what he remebered, with a shoulder length haircut where once had been a long braid and some make-up where once had been none. But nevermind, Herzog loved her:_

_'Erika!', he exclaimed, and it suddenly felt like his face was too small for his smile. She widened her eyes and gaped. He frowned a little; she was supposed to jump at him and hug him, like he saw many other couples doing. But maybe she didn't recognize him; he had changed, afterall. 'It's me, Hein! I told you I'd come back for you!'_

_'Oh my God, Hein!', she exclaimed, and her eyes filled with tears and she covered her mouth with a hand. Herzog was starting to feel confused; he knew nothing about women, only a few things he sometimes overheard when his comrades where talking about their wives... but those weren't happy tears, no way. Then he noticed a little boy standing at the doorway, peeking from behind Erika, looking from her to him:_

_'Mutti, was ist los?' (Mommy, what's happening?), the little boy asked. Herzog widened his eyes; did he hear right? Erika dried the tears to the back of her hand and stepped outside:_

_'Gehen Sie nach oben, Hans.' (Go upstairs, Hans.), she said, and the little boy vanished into the house. As she moved outside, Herzog noticed something on one of her fingers that made him feel like a 21cm Kanone 38 had recoiled into his stomach; a wedding ring:_

_'I told you I'd come!', he hissed, eyes sparkling with anger. Erika began to cry again. 'I wrote you! I promised you!'_

_'I know! And I've read all your letters! But Hein... my family...! They wanted me to marry, I had to marry!', she gave a little, shy step towards him, but he stepped back. 'You took so long!'_

_'I made myself a man worthy of you!', he felt his hands shaking. In fact, his entire body was shaking. 'I kept myself for you, only for you! And while I was working hard to earn enough to give you everything you wanted and to give your family the perfect son-in-law...', Herzog bit his tongue before he could say something... nasty:_

_'I had no choice!', Erika sounded indignated. 'I wanted children, I had no idea when you'd finally come back!'_

_'Are you suggesting I couldn't give you children?', Herzog was hysterical and Erika pulled her own hair:_

_'No, you idiot! I wouldn't be able to conceive from a certain age on! What use of a husband if we can't have children?'_

_They stared at each other in a deafening silence. Herzog's hands curled into fists:_

_'When?', he asked in a growl. Erika dried her tears again with her fingers:_

_'My older daughter is 10 years old.', she answered. And Herzog let out an inhuman scream; 10 years ago, when he had been in Berlin, studying to be an officer... and 'older daughter', there were more! He had waited all that time while she had passed her time happily putting children in the world!_

_He turned around and ran, his vision blurred with tears, and he ran, kept running... until he found himself in his old room, at the barracks._

_Home._

_Herzog threw his officer cap and his trench coat to the floor, allowing himself to cry. It was the worst pain he had ever felt; it pierced, it burned, it throbbed, it made him dizzy and sick and exhausted and the more he cried the worse it felt. He fell on the bed and wished he would never leave it again._

_In the next morning someone knocked at the door and got in. Herzog had his face hidden under the pillow and there was only one person in the world who did that... and it was exactly the last person Herzog wanted to be seen by:_

_'Herr Standartenführer?', Sascha called. Herzog squeezed his swolled red eyes shut, painfully; he looked miserable, lying on the bed still fully dressed, with muddy boots... and his face was surely something horrible to look at! He didn't move, even though he knew he couldn't fool Sascha. The Standartenführer felt his Ordonnanz sit next to him, on the bed. 'Herzog?'_

_Herzog sighed exhaustedly and uncovered his face, looking at Sascha. The younger soldier frowned:_

_'What happened to make you cry this hard?', he asked, truely concerned. Herzog bit his lower lip and felt his eyes fill with tears again. Sascha widened his eyes and started to move his hands nervously. 'Herzog, you're scaring me! What happened? Please, tell me! You know you can trust me, right? We're comrades and friends!'_

_The Standertenführer didn't want to cry and he didn't want to sob, and to stop himself from that he bit his lip until it bled. However, at the same time, all he wanted to do was bury his face on Sascha's shoulder and tell him that the only woman he had loved had ruined everything he believed in, had destroyed all his dreams, had reduced him to that shameful wreck. And he actually opened his mouth to cry out, to trust Sascha just like the young soldier had done to him about Fritz..._

_But... his mortally wounded pride was just that, moribund. It still had a little life left. And what would happen to that little life when Sascha knew he had failed miserably as a man? As a German man. What would Sascha think when he told him he was innocent to the point of trusting a person's word? What would his men think when they knew their Standartenführer, besides having no medals, had no family; no woman, no children... nothing. Just his Einsatzgruppe, just his weapons._

_They'll think you're a loser!, a little voice whispered inside Herzog's mind. They will think that a man who fails so miserably at being a man is not worthy of leading them!, the little voice kept saying, and added, Because... if you are not a man... how can you be a soldier?_

_Herzog's words died in his throat and he closed his mouth. He felt a lonely tear run down his cheek and he was suddenly aware of Sascha's hand on his shoulder:_

_'Herzog... Herzog, talk to me.', he heard the young soldier beg. But the little voice inside his head was stronger, and it told him that he was a soldier, an officer, a leader of men, that he was an SS officer and that he leaded the elite of the elite. And the elite couldn't fail. He couldn't fail. He shook his head, looking at Sascha, and he could see his lips moving and his worried expression, but he still only listened the little voice in his head. Besides... all he knew was death... all the different scents of death, all the different shapes and colours and velocities... All he knew was how to take a life, not how to give one._

_His heart stung and he changed abruptly to a sitting position:_

_'I'm fine, Sascha.', he mumbled, walking to a full length mirror on the wall opposite to the bed and watching his face on it. He then noticed something he had never noticed before; little wrinkles. He frowned, suddenly forgotten about Sascha, and removed his jacket, tie and shirt. He had always been big; tall and with broad shoulders and a large chest. The years of war and the every-day training in the barracks had only made him bigger. But now that he was aware of it, his muscles didn't seem as chiseled as before. Age, the little bastard! Herzog grinned sadly; seemed not only women had to worry about that! He did a note to self to make more and harder exercise:_

_'Herzog...?', Sascha called again, quietly. The Standartenführer blinked his eyes and turned around to face his Ordonnanz. 'Do you want to talk about it?'_

_'There is nothing to talk about.', Herzog replayed, finally shutting his emotions; he wasn't a colonel for crying over his men, was he?_

_Sascha just nodded and left._

_That same day Herzog drove a black car to his home-village; a black car full of Gestapo agents. He parked the car in the yard of Erika's house and was the first to get out, followed by the Gestapo agents, all uniformed with the expection of their commander:_

_'The little Red bastards, right under our noses!', the commander commented to Herzog as he watched his men break open the door of the house and storm in. 'Herr Standartenführer, you truely are an amazing man!'_

_'Danke.', Herzog replayed solemly. He could already hear the screams and it didn't take long until Erika, her husband, their 4 children and Erika's father were dragged outside by the Gestapo agents. Two of them aimed at them while the others prepeared everything to set the house and the barn on fire; the properties now belonged to the Party, that would surely make good use of them._

_Erika held her children close, terrified, and for a moment her eyes met Herzog's... but his where now sharply cold, no emotions left:_

_'Finish the old man first.', the Gestapo commander ordered:_

_'I would like to, if possible.', Herzog asked with a smile. 'Afterall... they're infecting my home-village.', and the Gestapo commander nodded. Herzog removed his Mauser from its holster and appointed to the stomach of the old man, then pressed the trigger:_

_'Chic!', the Gestapo commander laughed; by shooting the stomach, Herzog was giving the old man a painfully slow death... he would die with his internal organs burned by his own stomach acid:_

_'I know, it's Hugo Boss.', Herzog replayed and laughed too, because he wasn't doing anything wrong, he was just eliminating his enemies. He decided to shoot Erika's husband in the throat and let him drown in his own blood. The Gestapo agents cheered. The house and the barn were on fire. Erika cried and screamed, terrified and confused. He decided not to shoot the children, instead he grabbed one by the arm and walked to the flaming house. The Gestapo agents cheered again and decided to help him with that too, and the children were burned alive._

_He then looked at Erika; she had seen her father, husband and children die, and her house was burning down. He considered killing her... but that would be too good for her:_

_'Herr Kommandand, I think she would be useful in a factory... what do you think?'_

_'That you should be a Reichführer-SS (Empire-Leader of the SS), Herr Standartenführer!', the Gestapo commander replayed, and cast a greedy look at Erika. Herzog just smiled._

_When the 3 months leave was over, in February 1941, Herzog was detached to Norway. He made no objection; their were winning the war, Sascha could make the officer course when they were back and Germany was victorious, which would give him more experience, and therefore he would have a better grade, something that could make it easier to apply for the higher ranks._

_He knew he was different, and that his men probably didn't like that, but he wanted to prove himself he was worthy of leading them. That he was powerful and mighty. He was cruel to the enemy before, now he was even more. He did the reports himself and was never that talkative with his men again, because he had learned the hard way that when you like someone too much you might pay it dearly._

_When the rumors about Germany's defeat began to spread and seemed more and more like an inconvenient truth, Herzog ordered his men to gather as much gold and jewels they could; he planned to share the loot among his 80 men and send them to Ireland, that had tried to be an ally of Germany against England. He hoped they could live safely there, and Herzog would never forgive himself if he let something happen to his men. He didn't know what to do or where to go, so he kept one box for himself, just in case. He also didn't tell his men about his plans, afraid someone could hear them._

_During the first weeks of 1945, his men gathered 180 boxes of loot. One night, when Herzog was about to tell them about his plans, their head-quarters, a cottage halfway up the moutains, was attacked by rebelled locals. Dietrich, who was standing guard, was the first to die. The second was Konrad, who had managed to run to the living room, where the Einsatzgruppe was gathered, and tell them to run before an explosive broke through the window and filled the living room with shrapnel, killing Konrad and some other men and injuring the Standartenführer in the face. Herzog managed to take his men safely to the back of the cottage and they left by the back door; they had a doctor with them, but the man was in one of the other rooms and the Standartenführer didn't want to lose anyone because of a man who wasn't even part of the company. But they were soon found and, no matter how loud Herzog yelled at his men not to panick and stay together, many panicked and started to run in different directions, just to be chased and ambushed by the locals._

_They had left in a hurry, so the only weapons the soldiers had were their Luger P08 and Herzog had his Mauser. Herzog watched, horrified, as his soldiers died one by one, until the only ones still running up the moutains where Sascha, Fritz and Herzog:_

_'We need to find somewhere to hide!', Herzog said; he was right behind his two soldiers, watching their back, but that didn't stop one of the locals, who was hiding in the snow at the same level as they were, from shooting Sascha in the throat. And seeing Sascha fall on his knees, eyes wide and gushing blood from his mouth and neck, felt like the end of the world. Herzog managed to kill the bloody peasent, and that was his last bullet._

_Herzog wanted to quit, to curl up and cry, but Sascha wasn't dead yet and Fritz was still alive; he had to take Sascha to a hospital, he had to take care of Fritz! So they both carried the wounded soldier to the top a mountain, where they found a cave. Herzog decided to leave Fritz and Sascha alone for a moment and hid the box he had brought in the inside pocket of his jacket in a secondary cave. Then he came back and, while trying to think of a way of saving Sascha, he found himself witnessing helplessly as his Ordonnanz, his friend and comrade, died slowly. And it hurted even more when Fritz prefered to suicide and leave him alone... but Herzog couldn't blame the young soldier for that._

_He digged a grave for them both, thinking it would be at least comforting to be buried with the one you once loved in life. He would never known that, though, and allowed himself to cry; Erika was surely dead because of him, his men were dead because of him, Sascha was dead because of him... the ones he had loved and cared for where gone, there was just him on the top of the mountain._

_And he started to feel himself succumb, and he cried harder and screamed harder, cursing everything and everyone, but especially himself for not taking care of his men. He swore he would avenge his soldiers, no matter what... until everything went dark._

_He woke up in the middle of the snow, and at first he thought he had just fainted. Good thing, his face didn't hurt anymore, and he curiously felt well-rested. Not looking at the place where he had buried Sascha and Fritz, he went to the cave and found the little box. He opened it, trying to think in what to do next, and discovered a little mirror; good, he could take a look at the damage that had been done to his face. So he took the mirror outside and looked himself... and then he screamed and let go the mirror, and he screamed again because that wasn't a human scream, it resembled one of a wounded animal. A big and dangerous animal._

_His skin... his skin looked like those of the corpses he had left in the Polish snow! And his face looked horrible, with a gash that had torn off part of his lips! He tried to mouth 'Oh my!', but instead of words all that came out where growls. Herzog panicked and tried desperately to speak, until finally he managed to growl something that resembled human words. Panick, panick, panick! He took a hand to his heart... and felt no heartbeat._

_Then he understood he had to be dead... but at the same time he wasn't! Which meant he was still there, in the world of the living, and he could do things! Of course he could do things, he has moving, he could run, jump! He had tricked death! He was actually powerful, he wasn't dead-dead!_

_He had never been happier before, maybe his men weren't dead-dead too! He used his hands to uncover the bodies of Sascha and Fritz... but they were apparently dead. Just like Herzog had left them. Their skin had that strange colour too. The Standartenführer felt disappointed and sighed, and allowed himself to caress Sascha's face. A blue light sparkled between his gloved hand and the soldier's face._

_Sascha's blue eyes opened and he changed to a sitting position, blood dripping from his mouth. And Herzog was happy again._

_With Sascha and Fritz following him, he returned to the place where their head-quarters had been; there were only ruins now. They retrieved a few things, like some spare helmets, flags and a field bed, but the most important thing was that Fritz found his old comrades buried in the snow, next to the cottage. And Herzog came back to the cave with his 80 men and the doctor; he had never felt that powerful before._

_Time gone by and eventually they chased one or two unwary citiziens who dared to climb the moutains too high. Their clothes and devices where quite strange, and Herzog started to think that maybe those weren't the 40ies of their victims had a newspaper in a backbag and Herzog was most surprised when he read the date and confirmed his suspicions._

_That could only mean one thing: he had been given a chance to redeem himself before his men, to avenge them and to lead them to victory. And it all started when a bunch of noisy young locals dared to steal Herzog's little box._

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><p>*the SS didn't go there in 1938... but I wanted them to! :D<p>

**the service uniforms were grey... but I want them black! :D

***Hitler decided to re-instaure the Pagan festivity Yule instead of Christmas (Yule coincides with Christmas)

**_Weeeeee, review?_**


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note:** thanks for the reviews. :3

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><p>He felt sick and squeezed his eyes shut, overwhelmed by the memories he had so carefully buried in the back of his mind. All the faces, names, years, places danced inside his head in a painful turmoil. Then he felt a light pressure on his arm and looked at it, to see a small hand resting on it. Agnes had moved closer to him and she was looking at him... but Herzog couldn't identify the emotion, or emotions, in her face. Was it pity?, was is compassion?, was that the begining of a friendly smile? He sighed and looked at his hands; there were the bloodstains again:<p>

'I must confess the situation with you got out of control.', he mumbled. 'My plan was to use you and, depending on the result, kill you to make you join my men or just... kill you. I suppose...', he paused, like coming to this conclusion had been the most exhausting thing he had ever done. '... when I saw you talking to Sascha and Fritz... I got jealous. I mean, they look dumb, and I must confess I didn't even bother with that, I thought I was the best, because of my powers... Sascha is right, I'm actually an arrogant bastard. So I thought you should talk to me, not to them... which makes me a greedy bastard. But in the end... they took better care of you. I failed again!', he grinned sadly and looked at her. 'My intention was not to cause you troubles...'

Agnes blinked her eyes, slowly, her brain still processing that someone had actually wanted her company, that someone had actually been jealous for her:

'So, why did you leave me behind?', the young woman asked:

'You needed real medical care. I couldn't give you that.'

'Why didn't you just kill me? If that was your initial plan...'

'It was.', Herzog snarled, and he moved away from Agnes, like the hand on his arm was burning his skin. 'I did want to kill you; my men like you, you like them... it would make everybody happy. But,', he paused again for brief seconds. 'I couldn't do it. What about your friends, and your family? And I'm sure you have places you'd like to visit, things you'd like to do... I couldn't be that selfish again... I couldn't drag you with me to that cave, like what I did to my soldiers.'

'Well, you should have killed me.', Agnes replayed coldly and Herzog had to look at her, surprised. 'There is nothing here for me.'

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><p><em>Agnes never came to know her parents; her mother died giving birth and her father died in a car crash weeks later. All she had was her elder brother, a 20 years-old soldier. <em>_She grew up in the local barracks, surrounded by the military, and at the age of 5 she decided she wanted to join the army too. Her brother was a paratrooper and always told her that when she was grown he'd take her to jump with him. Agnes liked living there; they allowed her to go everywhere, she could attend to her brother's martial art lessons and she was even taught to shoot. __Life in the barracks was good; everybody liked her and she liked everybody. Even the grumpy generals turned into lovely grandfathers every time she was around._

_When she 10 there was an exhibition with the paratroopers. She was with the medical staff, watching the men jumping from the airplanes; her brother was among them. However, something went wrong; one of the soldiers had a problem and his parachute didn't open. He fell on free fall on the fields where his comrades were landing safely, much for everybody's horror. That man was Agnes' brother, as one of the generals told her later that day. _

_She didn't shed a single tear that day, because she thought she was strong, and was surrounded by strong men. She didn't want to be the weak one. And she also decided she would never skydive._

_Having no other living relatives, Agnes had to go to an orphanage and she never managed to cope with the sudden change; first she was in a place she liked, with people who were her friends and her brother, people who would never harm her... and now she was just another child among so many, alone, with no friends and no brother to protect her. She had a tough time with the bullies, and even though she knew how to defend herself she was afraid of fighting, afraid that it would make things worse._

_Agnes still thought herself strong, even though she allowed herself to cry at night, under the blankets._

_She was a good student, and that was another reason why the other kids picked on her. She listened to a different music and dressed differently, which made her the most uncool kid in the orphanage, and no one wanted to be close to her. She didn't want them around, either; Agnes preferred the solitude and the memories of the barracks. She gave up on joining the military and thought about doing something related to History, memories and past._

_Archaeology seemed fun and exciting, even though it required team work and in spite of her awkward social skills._

_There were moments during the rest of her childhood and her adolescence in which she thought about suicide, but there was this little voice telling her that she was stronger than that, that she would manage through it all. That voice was her own voice, and she eventually stopped thinking about suicide and such. When she was 18 she decided to cover her arms and neck with tattoos, because she didn't want to look at the scars on her skin anymore._

_Agnes realized all that 'strenght' had made her a cold, even empty, person; wake up, eat, study, work, eat, sleep. Not having friends to go out with offered her a good chance to have good grades in the university and the time to have a part-time job, that allowed her to move to an appartment of her own when she was 19. Getting rid off the orphanage had actually feel... good. _

_When she started working she had to act friendly with her colleagues, even though she never felt comfortable with them and never trusted them to the point of developing something else. Agnes felt like a machine, and there were days in which that thought was maddening, and for the first time she started to wish she had someone, a friend, to talk to; someone who wouldn't judge her, someone who would support her. _

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><p>'You would have done me the greatest favour of all...', she sighed, looking at the ceiling.<p>

They spent several minutes in silence, and Herzog didn't take his eyes off her. He shook his head, slowly and sadly:

'I had no idea...', he whispered. A small smile grew on her lips:

'I like your Einsatzgruppe. I feel comfortable with them.', she changed to a sitting position, grimacing when her ribcage stung. 'I miss them.'

_She didn't miss you._, the little voice inside Herzog's head said, and he tried to ignore it:

'They miss you too. Sascha kicked me out and told me only to come back with you.', he told. Agnes smiled:

'We can go now!'

'No, you are goin to stay here recovering, and I am going to stay here and make sure you recover.', he then added, unsure. 'If you want me to.'

The young woman frowned; was he actually volunteering to stay with her? That was new, and Agnes tried to think of an answer that wouldn't sound too desperate for company. A dead man's company, by the way:

'Why wouldn't I?'

'I've just ruined your life!'

'Did you plan to fight those Russian creeps?'

'No... I didn't even know...'

'So, you didn't ruin my life. Bad luck, that's all.', the young woman assured, lying down again on her uninjured side to look at the Standartenführer. 'Anyway, there is no reason not to kill me. As you brilliantly said, everybody will be happy.'

'I wouldn't.'

'But you've just said-'

'That there are things you'll want to do, places you'll want to visit.', Herzog cut her bitterly, because it had been tempting before and now was even more, since he knew she would actually be grateful for it. 'You are young, you'll change your mind.'

Agnes just narrowed her eyes, even though she had to admit Herzog was right; there were places she wanted to visit, things she'd like to do. And now that she was there and knew those dead men actually missed her and wanted her around... life didn't seem that bad. She didn't feel such a freak anymore. With a sigh, Agnes stretched out a hand towards Herzog:

'Let's make a deal.', she proposed. 'I'll give Life 20 years to make me change my mind. If that doesn't happen, you have to find me an Ahnenerbe* badge and kick out that creepy Doctor to make room for me.'

20 years. Practically the same time he waited for Erika. Herzog took her hand carefully and smiled:

'Deal.', he accepted, perfectly aware that he was throwing away the only chance to be completely happy. She was still smiling at him and it made him feel strange inside, and he wondered if his guts had grown life of its own and if they could move. He shook his head, now feeling like an idiot; that was the kind of thing someone like Sascha would think about and make a great epic from!

'You should have told Sascha.', Agnes commented and her face became serious. 'He's hurt with you.'

'I know...', the Standartenführer mumbled, looking away from her. He noticed they were still holding hands and blushed, and hoped she wouldn't notice. He took a deep breath and decided he should make himself useful. 'Can I take a look at your stitches?'

'I think there's something wrong with them, but I can't even put a band-aid correctly...', she said, smiling again and kicking the blanket away with her healty leg. Then she dragged herself closer to Herzog, sat and rested her back against the pillow.

He loosened the elastic bandage and then unwrapped the normal bandage that protected the stitch on her knee, always careful not to touch her leg, because a decent man doesn't touch a lady's leg, never! He frowned when he noticed a small yellow stain in the white bandage, and the frown became worse when he too a look at the stitch:

'I hope you know you can't fight off an infection right now.', he told her, narrowing his eyes and approaching his head to her knee, too see better. His freezing breath against her skin made her shiver. 'Have you ever heard of disinfecting?'

Of course she had, but she hadn't had the patience for it. Herzog pressed his fingers carefully around the stitches, and the coldness of his fingers actually felt good:

'If Herr Standartenführer allows me to move, I'll go disinfect that.', she said. But Herzog shook his head and stood up:

'I'll do that for you.', he then added quickly. 'If you allow me to.'

'It's... fine.', Agnes replayed, and hoped she didn't sound too desperate to have someone doing that for her. 'There is oxygenated water, cotton and new bandages in the bathroom's cabinet.'

Herzog nodded and left, coming back little later with the mentioned items. Agnes moved to the border of the mattress and stretched her legs on the floor, grimacing when she moved her injured knee. Herzog kneeled next to her and soaked a cotton ball in oxygenated water:

'You should have stayed in the hospital and do some mechanotherapy...', Herzog grumbled, cleaning the stitches with the caution of someone disarming an explosive. Agnes took a while to answer, marvelled with such a careful big man. Big dead man. Big dead Nazi man:

'I didn't want to stay at the hospital.', she finally answered, and the Standartenführer looked at her with big, wide blue eyes. That eye with that scar was still very impressing. 'I wanted to come back to you and the guys and understand what the heck happened.'

Herzog didn't answer, he didn't know what to say or how to feel; moved and happy because she had came back in such conditions, angry because that was all his fault, hopeful because she was there... yet he couldn't help but mentally sing victoriously and tell the little annoying voice in his head to go plant potatoes. He finished disinfecting her knee:

'The other stitches.', he said. Agnes hesitated a little, but she ended up lifting her t-shirt above the stitches. Herzog frowned again and started to unwrap the bandage around her ribcage. 'I can count your ribs, you're too thin.'

'I haven't been hungry...', she mumbled, watching as he disinfected those stitches too. And besides... moving was painful, so she didn't want to move much, and that implied cooking. 'Aren't you going to bandage the stitches again?'

'No, they need air to dry. If you keep them covered, they'll be humid, and that's good for infections.'

'You know a lot!'

'I've seen much.', Herzog smiled sadly and put the cotton and the oxygenated water aside. 'What time is it?', and Agnes picked up her phone from the floor, near the mattress, and lay down again on her back:

'10 a.m.'

'Good. Sleep again.'

The young woman wanted to protest and tell him she wasn't sleepy or tired... but she was. However she was stubborn, and she crossed her arms:

'You should sleep too, you look exhausted.'

'I don't need to sleep, Agnes...', Herzog replayed patiently, and it actually felt nice to say her name without the 'Fräulein'. Yet he did feel exhausted... but he was stubborn too:

'I want you to sleep.'

'No, I want you to sleep.'

'Let's make a deal!', Agnes proposed, and the Standartenführer made a face. 'You can bring the puffs and sleep here, so we both know the other isn't cheating.', literally room-mates, seems legit!

But not for Herzog.

That was indecent! He couldn't sleep in the same room as her, that was just.. wrong! And it was even wronger when he caught himself nodding in agreement and making his way to the living room to bring the puffs. He placed the puffs at a respectable distance from her mattress, though... and noticed she was already sleeping. He considered putting the puffs back to place and do something useful like piling all her boxes and bags in a corner, so that the living room looked a little more organized... but instead he lay on his side, facing her, and closed his eyes. Just five minutes wouldn't hurt anybody...

He woke up with the sound of rain against the closed window. With an involuntary yawn, he changed to a sitting position and looked at Agnes; she was still sleeping. Herzog found himself smiling and realized he hadn't had a nightmare. That was good. He reached out for Agnes phone and saw 12 a.m. on the screen.

The Standartenführer made his way to the kitchen.

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><p>Agnes woke up with a cold finger poking her shoulder. She opened one eye, lazily, and found Herzog crouched next to the mattress, holding a dish full of... mashed potatoes and sausages. She frowned and cast Herzog an utterly surprised look. The Standartenführer shrugged:<p>

'I didn't destroy your kitchen.', he assured, and she widened her eyes and he chuckled. 'My mother used to look at me like that everytime I cooked.'

'It's not that...', she mumbled, sitting. 'It's just... Hein, you're spoiling me!', but he just frowned and tilted his head, not understanding. The young woman sighed and held the dish; it actually looked good. A dead man that could cook, what else would they invent?:

'What do you mean, Fräulein?', he asked, sitting patiently on the floor, enjoying her satisfaction with the food:

'Nobody ever cooked for me like this.'

'You can't move, it's more than obvious that I'd do that for you!'

'You really are over-protective.', Agnes smiled and drew a swastika on the mashed potatoes. Herzog laughed and shook his head; he wasn't over-protective, he just took good care of what belonged to him. And Agnes was still his archaeologist, his subordinate... and apparently they were friends now. He observed her as she had lunch; she was small, with delicate features and seemed fragile... yet she was strong, resistant, persistent... with moral values... unlike Erika. Agnes could barely move, but there she was, she had came back to the Einsatzgruppe, to her comrades, to her leader!:

'Hein?', she called, interrupting his thoughts. He nodded. 'Yesterday you said you'd stay with me while I recover... I'll take 2 months before I start woking at the museum...'

'I'm going to stay here with you.', Herzog assured her:

'But what about the guys?'

'Sascha will take care of that.', and the Standartenführer smiled, stood up and took her empty dish to the kitchen:

'Can you work with the dishwasher?', Agnes asked, hopeful:

'No, but I can actually wash these things without breaking them.', Herzog said, because that couldn't be different from washing his old military lunch box, right?

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><p><strong>Weeeee, review?<strong>


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note:** thank you people so much for the reviews! *cries because so much happiness* And I'm so sorry for the late, but I've just started the new semester and I wanted to download all the pdfs I need and plan all the works before things get serious. : 3

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><p>Agnes spent the rest of the week in bed, and she was amazed to find out Herzog knew how to cook something else besides mashed potatoes and sausages. And seemed her kitchen was doing fine. From the second week on she found out he actually knew how to recover her knee (and basically all her weakened muscles), and he even knew how to use the gym ball, something Agnes only understood with the help of mighty Google. The Standartenführer was quite rigorous, and even though she complained about all the pain he would make her do one hour of exercise, twice a day. But in spite of the painful exercises, Agnes was feeling better, both in the outside and in the inside.<p>

Herzog was almost back to his confident self and, in spite of his and Agnes' speechless agreement about him sleeping on the puffs in the bedroom, he still mantained at least 20cm of distance between them and never touched her, unless he had to help her with an exercise or had to check her stitches; he felt like only with the recent happenings he had realized how... perishable she was, and he was suddenly afraid of hurting her. He was still the same quiet man, even though he really, really wanted to talk more with the young woman and have with her the old relaxed thing he had had with Sascha. Herzog did miss that... even if he was too proud to voice it.

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><p>It was a rainy day and Agnes had just taken a hot shower; it felt really good after Herzog's «morning drill». She got dressed and wrapped her hair in a towel, and left the bathroom with the help of the crutches; Herzog didn't let her walk around the house without those. She slowly crossed the living-room; it didn't look such a mess anymore because the Standartenführer had entertained himself lining up the boxes and bags along the wall. Agnes finally reached the room, where she found Herzog on the puffs, reading one of her German magazines about medieval swordmanship:<p>

'You're running out of supplies.', he informed, not taking his eyes off the magazine. Agnes sat on the mattress, left the crutches aside and reached out for her laptop on the floor, next to the mattress, and put it on her lap:

'I'm going to do some shopping, then.', and she looked at him, right on time to see him close the magazine and open his mouth to protest. 'Online shopping... I don't even need to get out of bed.', Herzog frowned, just like she expected, and she patted the empty space besides her on the mattress. The Standartenführer hesitated, and Agnes concluded it was the perfect time to make Herzog understand once and for all she did want him there, not only as a personal trainer. 'Hein, you should be enjoying the fact that no one else is here to take my attention from you...'

'You make me sound childish...', he grumbled, feeling the frozen blood on his veins heat up a little. But she was right, he should be enjoying her company, like he had wanted to do. Herzog sighed, defeated, and moved from the puffs to the mattress, sitting at a certain distance but still able to see her laptop:

'You can sit closer, I won't bite your head off.'

Herzog rolled his eyes, not moving an inch:

'Look at you Agnes, you're small and delicate. I don't want to hurt you.', she gave him her best «I'm not impressed» look and he sighed again. 'I'm not much of a... how do you say, touchy feely? Don't look at me like that, you know me, I've told you!', this time he moved a little closer, and part of him told him he was going to make his biggest mistake. 'Besides, I'm a walking ice cube, and you're warm, and with your hair like that you have good chances of catching a cold and-'

'Rottenführer Bergen wouldn't mind to sit closer.', Agnes replayed, remembering how Herzog had reacted when the Rottenführer had kissed her hand. That was enough to trigger the Standartenführer's possessiveness again and to dispel any remaining doubts about Agnes wanting him around or not. If there was something Herzog couldn't stand was having someone else, especially another officer, around his subordinates, be them soldiers or archaeologists. And Agnes was his, end of story.

'Because he's not a gentleman!', Herzog grumbled angrily and dragged himself closer to the young woman, until their sides were touching. Agnes shivered and the Standartenführer made a face. 'I told you you'd be uncomfortable...'

'I'm confortable.', the young woman said stubbornly, ignoring the coldness spreading from Herzog's body to hers. The Standartenführer thought she was going to move away sooner or later, though, and decided to enjoy that little moment of closeness:

'What are you doing?', he asked, looking at the screen of her laptop. She had once told him about her laptop, but since she had assured him it had no military purposes, he had lost interest on it:

'Shopping online.', Agnes explained. 'I have this thing in my laptop, the Internet, and it allows me to shop stuff without leaving my place.', and she added, because she knew he was going to ask. 'It has no military purposes, Hein...', of course it could have, and would if Herzog found out how to work with it, but Agnes didn't want him to end up in some weird NATO laboratory... or dead.

'Clever, nonetheless.', he commented, visibly disappointed, but he sounded more enthusiastic when he spoke again. 'Is it a German invention?'

'American.', and she couldn't help but giggle when he growled disapprovingly; that would definitely keep him away from the dangers of computers with Internet. 'There, in 5 minutes I bought my stuff. And in a few hours they bring it here.', Herzog just grunted and the young woman tried to cease the sudden bad vibes coming from him. 'Do you like music?'

'Not American music...', Herzog mumbled, focusing his attention on the tattoos on Agnes' neck. He felt a sudden urge of touching them, and the ones on her arms too, and feel those famous scars she had told him about... but maybe he shouldn't do that. Agnes had already opened a YouTube page:

'Horst Wessel Lied*?', she asked, and felt his body tense up. She looked at him; he was frowning, looking at the screen again like it was something particularly disgusting. 'Wenn alle untreu werden? Wagner?'

But Herzog said nothing for a while, he just stared at the screen. Then he shook his head, slowly:

'I would like to keep music just like I remember it, thank you.', he finally said; the glory of the old days, with flags, battalions parading and military bands, with the German people cheering and the Führer saluting his men. Modern technology, as wonderful as it seemed, couldn't give him that... and he didn't want those memories contamined with whatever Allied propagand had done with the little world he had lived in. He forced himself to smile and looked at Agnes, only to find comprehension in her eyes. 'You could show me yours, though.'

'You won't like it.', the young woman replayed with a sad smile. The Standartenführer made a face and she sighed. 'Fine...', she closed the YouTube page and opened her music folder. 'You are about to listen to Norway's biggest and most important contribuition for the modern world: Black Metal. Understanding this music is understanding Life!', she glanced at him before clicking «play all». 'Are you ready?', Herzog nodded, curious, and Agnes handed him the laptop. 'Have fun while I'm going to dry my hair.', and she clicked «play all».

While drying her hair in the bathroom, Agnes wondered if that had been a good idea; what would he think of her, that had nothing to do with the music he was used to. She made a face, combing her hair; maybe she should have showed him Neonazi music instead, it was that soft rock everybody listens to and the message was basically the same as the original Nazi music. Unpleasent memories popped in her head, memories of the orphanage, with everybody appointing at her and calling her names. Agnes shook her head, grabbed the crutches and made her way back to the bedroom.

Herzog was still on the mattress with the laptop on his lap, eyes lost and a slight frown, the agressive and grim music filling the silence. Agnes opened the wardrobe and choosed a little metallic box, where she kept her piercing jewelry, from one of the upper shelves, then turned to face the full-lenght mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door:

'You understand what they say?', the Standartenführer asked, looking at her, even though he couldn't see her because the wardrobe door was covering her:

'Yes, it's English. I can speak English. And of course, there are musics in Norwegian.', she replayed:

'That explains why I don't get a thing.', Herzog said, sounding visibly relieved. 'It's not different from the way my men and I speak. Growl. Makes them sound feral, interesting.'

Agnes peeked from behind the wardrobe door, an ear already full of lobe and orbital piercings:

'So... you like it?', she asked, hopeful. Herzog shrugged, looking at the laptop again:

'It's... audible. Is there anything in German?'

'Give me a minute.', and Agnes joined him little later, when she was done with her piercings. Herzog handed her the laptop again and frowned, noticing the two small vertical barbell piercings in her eyebrow; that was demanding to be touched, too! 'Let's try Nargaroth, it's a German band. This music** has an English intro, but the rest is in German.', the young woman said, unaware of Herzog's sudden change of interest. The Standartenführer finally gathered enough courage to raise a hand and poke the piercings with a finger:

'Yes, I understand this one. Not bad.', he commented absently. 'Where did you learn to speak German?'

'School.', Agnes decided to move her hair behind her ears and give Herzog more things to poke. 'I guess music session is over...?'

'What is the point of having this little things all over your ears? Do you know how dangerous this is in a fight?', Herzog asked, examining the piercings. He liked what he saw, though; they made Agnes look... different, from everything he had seen before. Agnes shuted down her laptop and allowed herself to enjoy the sudden non-offensive attention:

'I know, I was lucky I didn't have any when the Russian bastards found me.', she said. 'I like piercings, though. I think them pretty. Almost everybody has them, nowadays.', she smiled. 'I'm thinking about getting a lip piercing, next.'

Herzog opened his mouth to ask «How on Earth can someone kiss you with a metal ring in your lips?», but he refrained himself on time and pretended to be suddenly interested in a lock of her hair; that was none of his bussiness, why should he ask? They had a deal, afterall... she was alive, would be alive for the next 20 years, she could get all the piercings she wanted, meet all the people she wanted... The Standartenführer snarled and moved away, feeling strange, and decided to look at his socks. Black socks with green balls. Beautiful socks. Had everything to do with German aesthetics.

Agnes looked at him, confused, but decided not to ask him about. Instead she moved closer and leaned on him, and it suddenly felt like there was a massive, undestructible ice wall right there. Agnes tried not to shiver with cold and was glad that the tattoos made it difficult to spot the goosebumps:

'Talking about Russians, what's our next move?', she asked. Herzog rose a hairless eyebrow and looked at the small body resting against his arm. He leaned aginst the wall behind him, slowly:

'Our?'

'I'm your invalid archaeologist, remember?'

'You're not invalid!', the dead man relaxed and (he later swore he had no idea of how he did that) wrapped an arm around Agnes' shoulders. She did a good job at pretending she wasn't cold. 'Maybe we should clean the area of Russians before doing anything else.'

'It's something you can do in the moutains.', Agnes agreed, nodding slowly. 'You shouldn't show up in the land of the mortals so soon... Everybody is still talking about what happened, in the online news.'

'What do they say?'

'That a band of psychos dressed as Russian soldiers attacked and killed innocent people, and that they were leaded by your one-armed thief, that commited suicide.'

'I've read censored news better than that!', Herzog grumbled. 'But you're right, it would be dangerous to attack again like that. How long do you think the locals will be alert?'

'Until a new and glorious gossip appears. Or just give them some months.'

'I must eleminate the local authorities...', the Standartenführer thought. 'In fact, I must eleminate everybody...'

'Just... don't get caught, right?'

'We could use some fifth column, are there any National-Socialists left?', he lifted Agnes' chin with his fingers, looking at her in the eye. 'Are you a National-Socialist? Is there any Party we could use?'

Agnes decided it was too risky for Herzog and his Einsatzgruppe if they knew about the Neo-Nazi movement, not for the Neo-Nazis, but for the original Nazis; the values of loyalty and beautiful stuff like that they knew and were used to follow blindly were gone, someone could easily betray them if someone paid well enough. She frowned, suddenly aware of how dangerous the world outside could be for unwary zombies, and decided she would do her best to keep Herzog and his Einsatzgruppe within the safe area of the mountains:

'No Hein, we don't have such thing here in Norway anymore. And no, I'm apolitical.', Herzog was visibly disappointed. 'I'm by your side, though!'

The Standartenführer let go her chin, amused with that last sentence, and looked away. They didn't say a word for a while, until Herzog decided to speak again:

'So, what is your music about?', he asked. 'Besides mourning, from what I got from the German music.'

'War, death, Norse myths and basically all the crap humans do and why they should be eliminated for that.', Agnes resumed:

'Sounds... like a slap of truth right in the face.', he said, after a while. 'Not everyone handles that.', he looked at the young woman with a reverent smile. She smiled back:

'You're probably the only person who didn't think me a freak.', she said. Herzog's smile grew wider, and Agnes thought about the grinning skull of his officer cap:

'You're probably the only person who didn't scream and tried to run away after seeing me, so seems now we are even.', he replayed. Agnes just chuckled.

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><p>Agnes had her groceries delivered around lunch time. Herzog had been in a really easy mood, but when he went to take the shopping bags from the small hall to the kitchen and make her lunch, it felt like he had been sleeping in a comfortable hammock and had only waken up because he had fallen from it, face first in the mud; Agnes didn't need a dead man to discuss music with, she needed a living man to help her with the house and the food expenses!<p>

What was he doing, crawling from the puffs to her bed? He was fooling her! Worst, he was fooling himself! What are you looking at, you stupid potato? You shall be peeled alive for that!

The young woman got in the kitchen, unaware of Herzog's evil vengeance on the potatoes, pulled a chair and sat at the table, leaving the crutches on the floor:

'I can do that, it's my lunch afterall!', she said. The Standartenführer startled and glanced over his shoulder, frowning:

'You sneaky little thing!', he hissed. Agnes smiled innocently, but then her smile died:

'Your hand...', she mumbled, and Herzog looked at his hand; the blade of the knife was stuck deep in his thumb and dark blood was dripping from the wound. He shurgged and released the blade with a brusque movement. 'Oh my...', she started, because the cut was bigger and deeper, but her voice died when Herzog's damaged flesh and skin healed in a matter of seconds. The Standartenführer gave her a grin:

'It's... practical.', he said. And he defenitely liked how amazed Agnes looked:

'You have a healing factor, just like Deadpool! That's so cool!', she clapped her hands in excitement. 'Socoolsocoolsocoolsocool!'

But the Standartenführer just frowned, and Agnes was more than happy to discourse about Deadpool and Marvel comics.

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><p>*Anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930-45<p>

**Seven Tears Are Flowing to the River (Nargaroth), just in case you're wondering

**Weeeeeee, review?**


	15. Chapter 15

**Auhtor's note:** thanks so much for the reviews, favs and follows! :D

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><p>Herzog went back to his little protective shell of introspection for a few days after the adventure of the online shopping. The voice in the back of his mind was nagging him again, telling him he didn't belong there with Agnes, that he wasn't a man anymore, but a monster, and monsters don't live in houses for the very simple reason that monsters don't work, so they don't get paid, and if they don't get paid they can't afford a house, and food... and therefore can't have a family. He had had time for that, time he had wasted being a soldier, an officer... Maybe Erika had done the right thing.<p>

On the other hand, Herzog told himself he couldn't be in the righter place; he could be a dead man, but he was a fully operational dead man. And Agnes was happy, and recovering, and that was thanks to him. And his men were safe in the moutains. And Erika was a disloyal Untermensch and Herzog deserved better than that.

In fact, he had already found it.

He had been with Agnes for a month. That night he was decided to shut up the little annoying voice once and for all, so he stood up from the puffs and made his way to Agnes' inflatable mattress. It was already past mid-night, he knew she was fast asleep. Herzog sat at the edge of the mattress, telling himself he wasn't going to do anything wrong, that Agnes wouldn't mind. Besides that was all her fault, she was making him a touchy feely, cuddly man. And he was utterly curious to finally find out how was the feeling of having someone sleeping that close.

So he laid on his side and carefully dragged himself closer to Agnes, facing her back. She was still sleeping, undisturbed.

_Don't do that, haven't you learn that the Present is just that, Present? You don't know the Future, she isn't exactly yours!_, the little voice hissed. Herzog growled lowly and wrapped an arm around Agnes' waist, and rested his head on the pillow after making sure he wouldn't pull her hair. _Shut up!_, he told the voice,_ I do what I want, remember? All I had was a moment of exhaution and weakness, but I won't allow you to take over my sanity! She's mine, otherwise she wouldn't have came back!_

The voice seemed convinced by Herzog's logical arguments. With a satisfied grunt, the Standartenführer closed his eyes.

His victory didn't last long, though, and his wounded pride made itself noticeable by telling Herzog anyone could sleep on the same bed of someone who was already asleep. Herzog widened his eyes and didn't think twice before turning around, reaching out for Agnes' flashlight, on the floor next to the mattress, and turn again towards her:

'Agnes.', he called, shaking her mercilessly by the shoulder and turning the flashlight on. The young woman sighed and looked over her shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut:

'Waking me up with a flashlight is something I expected from Sascha, not from you!', she grumbled, turning around to face him. Herzog appointed the light to the ceiling and she opened one sleepy eye. 'What do you want...?'

'Would you give me the honour of sleeping in the same bed as you?', he asked, determined. Agnes opened her other eye and blinked, slowly, then widened her eyes, finally realizing Herzog wasn't kneeling on the floor or something like that. His big cold body was right there. She frowned; something serious must have happened to move him from the respectable distance of the puffs to her mattress.

She studied his tense face, badly illuminated by the flashlight, and concluded that had something to do with one of his internal struggles; she would like him to tell her about those, but one of the first things she had understood about Herzog was that he didn't like to be asked things, so she preferred to be patient and let him have his time, then tell her about that.

Agnes sighed; she had been hired by a Nazi zombie, she had been in a Nazi zombie march and battle, she had been nursed back to health by a Nazi zombie... so there wasn't really a problem in having a Nazi zombie sleeping on the same mattress as her, right? Besides, the young woman knew that had to be very important to Herzog, and now she was curious to find out what was so fascinating about people sleeping together:

'Fine. Just don't take the blankets and the pillow all for yourself, right?', she said, making herself comfortable again. 'And turn off the damn light, I want to sleep...'

The awe in Herzog's face was priceless. He turned the light off and threw the flashlight somewhere:

'I need no blankets...', he replayed, and rested his head on the pillow again. Agnes just grumbled something, already falling asleep.

He took a while to just stare at her in the dark, feeling ridiculous for finding her sleeping face so fascinating. And his wounded pride suddenly didn't feel so wounded. The Standartenführer moved a little closer, until he felt her warm breath against his neck, and made a note to self to don't breath; he didn't want to disturb her. Then, he carefully wrapped an arm around her and closed his eyes.

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><p>Agnes felt something heavy and cold around her, yet she didn't feel uncomfortable-cold. She was just... cold. And there was also a cold breathing against her face. She opened her eyes to find Herzog's head right there. Such a big and massive head! But at least he had kept his word about not occupying the whole pillow.<p>

He was sleeping deeply, Agnes had never seen him sleeping. She knew he did it when he was bored or didn't want to read, or think, or just to pass the time, but she could never imagine he looked that peaceful, too peaceful for a dead Nazi officer.

Agnes noticed that the scar across his eye wasn't actually a fresh scar, but a wound. And it looked painful, just like the slash on his face. She moved a little closer, suddenly having the impression that Herzog was too big and too detailed to be seen at once, with too many contrasts of dark and light, like some Romantic paintings. For example, the dark circles around his eyes were so dark she couldn't tell if he actually had eyelashes or not. He looked old if someone focused on the wrinkles in the eyes area, but on the other hand the sharp cheekbones and strong jaw made him younger. The Standartenführer breathed heavily and the air passing through the exposed teeth of his lower jaw sounded like a series of painful hisses.

The young woman managed to look away from his face and noticed his arm wrapped around her; that explained the heavy and cold something. She just smiled before the unspoken possessiveness of the gesture and noticed a few more scars on his arm, some of them disappearing under the fabric of the t-shirt sleeve. Agnes immediately plotted an evil plan to give Herzog a tank-top, so that she could have a better look on such an interesting dead man. From his arm, her eyes moved to his neck, and she saw part of a small chain around his neck, almost invisible on his greyish skin and hiding under the t-shirt. She was suddenly curious to take a look at his dog tag and SS-Ehrenring.

He was still sleeping, undisturbed, and Agnes thought about waking him up, because he never hesitated in waking her up. But he looked... cute, and that big and heavy arm around her made her feel cozy. So, instead of waking him up, Agnes moved even closer and rested her head against his chest, trying the odd sensation of feeling his chest rise and fall while he breathed but hearing nor feeling his heartbeat.

Herzog growled lowly in his sleep and tightened his grip around Agnes, who found her small body being smashed in a freezing iron grip:

'That's it, wake up!', she yelped as her ribacge stung. Herzog grumbled something and nestled his head on the crook of her neck. Or tried too, his head was too big. Agnes giggled and punched his chest, trying to make him wake up. 'Hein, come on! You're smashing me!'

He let out a sleepy 'Hmm?', and the grip around Agnes lost some pressure. He moved his head back to the pillow and opened one lazy blue eye, to be greeted with Agnes' smile:

'Who'd say you're so cute?', she giggled. Herzog just shrugged and closed his eye again:

'Schlaf, mein Schatz.' (Sleep, my darling.), he mumbled. But then he widened his eyes, realizing what he had just said, and changed to a sitting position, half-dragging Agnes with him, who ended up lying on a strange angle across his legs:

'That is actually a good idea!', she agreed, laughing.

Herzog just blinked his eyes, confused at first, but he relaxed slowly as he understood she wasn't angry at him or offended. He allowed himself to smile and lay down again, and Agnes moved back to her original place, at his side:

'So, shall I declare this the day off of exercises and intelectual activities such as reading and discussing music and arts and architecture and History?', she asked, clapping her hands enthusiastically. Herzog considered that, it seemed tempting to just stay there...

But officers don't just «stay there»...

But he was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with a yellow smiley, that inspired zero authority. So, if no one else would obey him, why should he obey himself?

Herzog looked at Agnes, at her huge smile, and she was already wrapped in the blankets again. He chuckled and shook his head:

'Fine... but I'm getting you some sandwiches first.'

'I'd do my victory dance, but you know... blankets.', Agnes chirped happily.

* * *

><p>Sascha sat heavily on the snow and hid his face on his hands. For brief moments all he felt was the wind howling around him, not far from the cave on the top of the mountain. He felt exhausted, and wondered if it was normal for a living-dead man to feel like that. He also wondered if Herzog had ever been through that too, and if so, how the heck had he managed through it all, keeping that bloody poker-face of his for the whole time.<p>

Then he felt someone sitting next to him, and he didn't need to look to know who it was. With a grunt, he rested his head on Fritz's shoulder and uncovered his face:

'I'm so fucking tired... so fucking tired...', he whispered. 'I had no idea commanding a bunch of idiots was like this! It was easier when we were in Poland, how come that it became so difficult?'

'You're doing well.', Fritz assured, unfastening the chinstrap of Sascha's helmet to remove it, and then getting rid off his own helmet. 'It's just that now we're more than in Poland, and Herzog isn't here to make sure everybody behaves.'

'Maybe that was why Herzog didn't get me in the Officers Course...', Sascha mumbled sadly, wrapping his arms around himself. 'Maybe he knew I wasn't ready, afterall...'

'He got stupid, that's why.'

Sascha said nothing, just spitted blood on the snow and watched the contrast of the dark blood on the white snow. The wind became stronger and the snow began to fall furiously. He looked around, from the grey sky to the whiteness of the mountains surrounding them, and sighed, nestling his head on Fritz's shoulder:

'He's been gone for how long?', he asked, because Fritz had been counting the days since they had kicked out Herzog:

'A month and a day.'

'Do you think he's fine?', Sascha moved away, frowning, an anguished expression on his face. 'Do you think something happened to him? I'll never forgive myself if I got him into troubles!'

'He's fine.', even though he wasn't sure of it, Fritz smiled. 'I'm sure he found Agnes. And if something bad had happened, we wouldn't be here anymore...'

'You got a point...', the blue-eyed zombie agreed, nodding slowly. He sighed again and turned his head to look at his comrade. 'He's fine, isn't he? Herzog is all big and scary... no one would mess up with him, right?'

'Right.'

Sascha nodded again, pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. Fritz did the same and they both stayed in silence for a while, listening to the wind while the snow pilled around them:

'Maybe I should have insisted with him... that day.', Sascha mumbled, not looking at Fritz, but he felt the other's brown eyes on him. 'I'm sure he must have felt lonely and exhausted many times...', he looked at Fritz and their eyes met, and Sascha looked guilty. 'Commanding is difficult, afterall. Now I feel like I abandoned him...', he looked away again. 'I just want to curl up and sleep, I'm sick of them. That stupid Bergen, the Doctor and the Wehrmacht guys, to be precise...'

'Bergen is jealous, and we can always kill the Doctor and then ask Herzog to revive him again. Or we could cut off his tongue!', Fritz smiled, enthusiastic, but Sascha just grumbled something. 'And the Wehrmacht guys... well, that's the Wehrmacht. What are those peasents compared to us, the SS?'

'A fucking massive headache!', Sascha made a snowball and threw it away, angry. 'Fucking fuckers...'

Fritz said nothing, just stared at the snow before him. A few minutes later he heard Sascha chuckle with a gurgling sound and looked at him, to see him smile sadly, showing his bloodstained teeth:

'How can you put up with me?', he asked, and looked older than what he was. Fritz just shrugged and blushed:

'It's no big deal...'

'You and Herzog, you both put up with me! And I'm so annoying! Holy shit, if I was an officer and had a soldier me in my company, I'd shoot my soldier self!', he laughed sadly, shaking his head, and cursed when Fritz slapped the back of his head:

'Your brain froze, too. Shut up.', the younger soldier grunted, and slapped his comrade's blonde head again just for the sake of it.

They went quiet for a while, looking at the landscape ahead. Sascha sighed and laid on his back, stretching out his arms and legs. Fritz looked at him and felt his frozen cheeks heat up a little:

'You don't feel lonely, do you?', he asked quietly. Sascha made a face:

'That's impossible, having you around!'

'Does it annoy you?'

'Don't you even dare to try and leave me for 5 minutes...', the blue-eyed zombie smiled and punched Fritz's arm playfully. But then his smile died as he studyied his comrade's face, frostbitten and darkened by the ice. He changed to a sitting position again and moved closer to Fritz. 'Do you remember that talk we had?'

'We had many...', the younger soldier replayed, even though he knew exactly which one Sascha was referring to. Sascha knew he knew, and frowned. Fritz smiled innocently. 'I do.'

'Do you think we actually killed that little bastard?', and Sascha laughed sadly. Fritz's smile became sad too:

'Don't call a feeling «bastard»...', he mumbled, and shrugged. 'I guess we did, and buried it deep.'

'Do you think it's still there, in its grave?', the sudden urgency and embarassment in Sascha's growling voice made the younger soldier smile widely:

'No, I think it crawled all the way out of its grave and came after us, to haunt us. At least it haunts me.'

'The little bastard, it haunts me too!', Sascha smiled again, happily, and felt his eyes sting. For a moment, he expected to feel tears, or to see tears in Fritz's eyes, but there were things they couldn't do anymore. 'I thought living-dead soldiers couldn't be haunted...'

'I thought there was no such thing as «living-dead», so we're both wrong.'

They laughed nervously and looked around, to check if they were still alone, and Sascha moved even closer to Fritz. But the younger soldier shook his head:

'It's not a good idea...', he said:

'First: all my ideas are great and glorious and most likely to work. Second: you don't sound convincing enough.'

'It's not a good idea!', Fritz repeated, and to make himself clear he shoved a handfull of snow into Sascha's mouth and stood up, as his comrade coughed snow and blood and cursed. Sascha stood up too, picked up their helmets and threw Fritz's at his comrade's face. Fritz caught it easily and covered his head with it:

'You owe me a kiss.', Sascha said, shaking the snow off his uniform and walking away, to the cave. Fritz trotted after him:

'Just one?'

'Don't try me, young man...'

They made their way to the cave, pushing and kicking and punching each other. When they reached the cave the Einsatzgruppe and the SS troops were already there. The Doctor was still tied to the rock and had given up on ranting about Sascha. Rottenführer Bergen and his tank crew were there too. Sascha and Fritz stopped playing and Sascha smoothed his uniform the best he could:

'The Wehrmacht guys?', he asked the other zombies:

'Already in the cave.', one of the SS soldiers informed. 'They say they won't leave tomorrow if you don't find them something interesting to do. They want to attack.'

'Fuck them, I'm not attacking before Herzog comes back.', Sascha grumbled:

'That is quite reasonable.', Rottenführer Bergen commented. Sascha ignored him:

'There is a group of campers on the eastern slope.', Dietrich informed excitedly, feeling useful. 'We could kill those!', and the other zombies nodded approvingly:

'We are not killing anyone.', Sascha growled and Fritz nodded:

'But if this is out territory, I think we should defend it.', Rottenführer Bergen opined, and everybody cheered. Sascha made a snowball and threw it at the Rottenführer's face:

'We are not attacking anyone. After what happened, I think Herzog wouldn't want to attack again so soon for security reasons. We don't need the peasents to chase us in the moutains. Again.', he added, bitterly. The Einsatzgruppe soldiers looked at each other, nodding:

'But they are Untermenschen! I think we should kill them if they get any closer to the cave.', Rottenführer Bergen said stubbornly:

'Sounds reasonable!', one of the Einsatzgruppe soldiers agreed, and they all looked at Sascha.

The blue-eyed zombie tensed up; they were all right, the local peasents existed just to be killed, the dead soldiers wanted a revenge... but he was right too, he knew he was thinking like Herzog! Security first! He already knew how tough it was to command many men, he didn't want to know what was like to feel guilty for the death of the men he was in charge of:

'Agree, but tell them if we kill them, we have to make it look like an accident.', Fritz whispered, next to him:

'Fine, we kill the campists if they get any closer.', Sascha agreed. The troops cheered and he had to raise his voice. 'But it has to look like an accident!'

'We can choke them with snow!', Dietrich chirped happily:

'We can bury them alive!', Michael exclaimed, his only eye shining with contentment. Sascha sighed:

'Whatever. Now, cave.', he ordered.

Sascha and Fritz waited outside as the noisy SS troops made their way into the cave, counting the soldiers to make sure no one was missing. When they were finally alone outside, Sascha turned around to face Fritz and wrapped his arms around him, strongly:

'Danke...', he sighed, allowing himself to close is eyes for brief moments.

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><p><strong>Weeeeee, review?<strong>


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note: **big chapter is big! :D And thank you so much for the reviews, and favs, and follows!

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><p>'So?', Agnes asked as she and Herzog finished the Monty Python marathon, that lasted the whole day. Herzog blinked slowly, watching as she shutted down her laptop, then frowned:<p>

'That made me a serious brain damage... And there's the echo of that really annoying British accent in my ears...', he said and looked at her. Agnes felt like her face was too small for her smile:

'Wasn't it fun?'

'This is fun!', Herzog replayed, poking her sides. She squealed and hid under the blankets:

'Come on, you liked it! I saw you smirking during the 'Unknown Joke' sketch!', she tried again, peeking from her soft fortress. Herzog just rolled his eyes and put her laptop on the floor, near the mattress:

'People always pick on the Germans, then get really annoyed when they are invaded.', Herzog grumbled and stood up. 'The fake Führer's campaing was funny, though... except for the speech part.'

'Germans are actually the least funny people...', Agnes concluded, kicked the blankets away and stretched her hands towards Herzog. He frowned:

'You have your crutches right there...'

'I'm going to work in a few weeks, I don't want the crutches.'

'It's too soon to leave them!'

'My knee is fine! Hein, come on!'

The Standartenführer sighed patiently and made his way to her side of the mattress, then held her hands:

'Careful.', he said when she used both legs to stand up. Her injured knee buckled and she would have fallen if his arms and broad chest weren't there to catch her. 'You know that leg lost muscle and strenght in spite of the exercises, right?', and Agnes replayed something, her words muffled against his chest.

They eventually made it to the kitchen, Herzog walking backwards, slowly and patiently, while Agnes held his hands firmly and followed him with clumsy steps and an accentuated limping in her injured leg. They reached the table in the middle of the kitchen and Herzog pulled a chair for Agnes:

'It wasn't that bad!', she exclaimed, sitting, and added before Herzog could ask. 'No pain. Really. It's good as new.'

'I hope so...', Herzog replayed and turned around to open the fridge. 'What do you want to eat?'

'Pizza!', Agnes replayed happily and the Standartenführer picked up a ready-made pizza from the fridge. 'Have you ever eaten pizza?'

'I did. In... 1930.', he told and put the pizza on a dish to go to the oven. 'Not very fond of it. I prefer the good German food. And I don't really like Italians, they're useless and the worse allies you can have...'

Agnes just rolled her eyes and looked outside. It was night, maybe it was already 10 p.m.. Herzog put the pizza in the oven and made his way to the window to close the blinds, then joined Agnes at the table.

That night Herzog found himself thinking again, while tracing the tattoos on Agnes' arms and neck with a finger; he already knew the barbed wire drawings by heart, and the scars hidden under the ink. She was going to start working soon, which meant he had to go back to the cave, back to his soldiers.

_I don't want to go without her._, Herzog concluded and wrapped his arm around Agnes' waist. He had done that before, devoting himself to Erika and then leaving... only to find nothing when he came back. He didn't want to go through that again, even though he trusted Agnes. But she was young, she could change.

Herzog didn't want that.

He realized his fingers were now curled around her neck, just waiting for his command to tighten. Her neck was so delicate and his hand so big, she wouldn't even notice, she wouldn't feel pain or discomfort. And she wouldn't mind.

But the Standartenführer moved his hand away, like her neck had burned him, and put some distance between their bodies, his eyes wide and his breath stuck in his chest; he couldn't do that, they had a deal! He could have tortured and killed many innocent people, but he had never withdrawn his word! If he did that, he would be just like the creatures he hated and despised!:

'Hein?', Agnes called, interrupting his thoughts. She was facing him and he could see her eyes shine in the dimness of the room. 'Is anything wrong?'

'I... I was just thinking...', he mumbled, moving slowly to his original place. Agnes rested her head on his arm while his other hand moved away a few locks of hair from her face:

'You haven't been thinking these last nights. What's wrong?'

'I'm a selfish greedy bastard.', the Standartenführer replayed, looking away from her and resting his hand on her shoulder. 'Just... go back to sleep.'

'I will, if you go back to sleep too.'

'Fine...'

'Fine..', Agnes repeated, and Herzog smirked, closing his eyes. But he couldn't sleep, and found himself looking for something in his memories that could help him, something from a book he had read, or a music he had listened to, or a painting, or a sculpture, anything that could quiet him for a while. He finally remembered; Horace, Odes, book 1. He was 23 when he read it and thought the expression 'carpe diem' disgusting and without moral, and had quickly finished the Odes to start reading something more Germanic, more instructive... like Parsifal. However, now it sounded like the meaning of life after death, and he liked it, but at the same time he didn't, it was still feeling wrong.

He shook Agnes by the shoulder and she let out a suffering sigh:

'Yes, Hein...', she mumbled, opening one eye. He seemed worried:

'Have you ever read Horace's Odes, book 1?', the Standartenführer asked. She frowned:

'No...'

'Have you ever heard the expression 'carpe diem'?'

'No...', and she smiled before his utterly disappointed face. 'What does it mean?'

'Seize the day.', he replayed, like it was something absolutely horrible to say out loud. Agnes opened her other eye and spent a moment in silence, looking at the dead Nazi officer. Very cultured dead Nazi officer. Maybe too cultured for his own good. She sighed patiently and rested a hand on his freezing cheek:

'There's is nothing wrong in enjoying the present moments, Sir Gawain...', she assured, because he clearly had a problem with enjoying and having fun.

Herzog seemed pleased with the compliment, although he didn't seem convinced with the 'carpe diem'. But Agnes said it wasn't wrong, so it couldn't be wrong. Or at least completely wrong. Right? With a content grunt, Herzog made himself comfortable and closed his eyes to sleep a little.

* * *

><p>'Just keep them faceplant in the snow, are we understood?', Sascha asked. The others nodded, enthusiastic, and took their positions to ambush the unwary campists, who were making their way up the mountain. 100 men against 10 campists was absurd, but Sascha knew he had no other choice than bringing everybody.<p>

When the campists reached the small wood of dead trees, the zombie troops emerged from the snow and attacked them from behind, forcing the campists to fall and then pressing their faces in the snow. Some didn't even notice what happened, others wriggled and tried to fight back. The one Sascha caught and was sharing with other 5 soldiers was offering some resistance, in spite of Sascha's hands on his head, pressing it against the snow, and the other zombies holding him in place.

It didn't take long, though, and soon the group of campists was finished. Sascha allowed himself to smile; that had actually gone well! But his smile died as soon as one of the Wehrmacht soldiers said:

'There's one running down!'

'Get him, Fritz!', Sascha commanded, before everybody decided to go after the survivor and make a gore fest. Fritz ran after the campist who had stayed behind and watched in sheer horror what happened to his friends, and since the zombie soldier didn't get tired he managed to catch the poor campist a few meters away from the ambush place.

But the campist had a knife, and Fritz wasn't counting on that, and he widened his eyes in surprise when he saw the blade coming to his neck. Caught off guard, Fritz didn't even had the time to think about defending himself, and the knife cut deep through his neck. His dead body fell at the campist's feet, who just stood there, horrified, looking from the bloody knife to the Nazi corpse.

Sascha, watching at distance with the others, widened his eyes and gaped. He heard the other soldiers growl and even noticed them starting to move, by the corner of his eye. What he didn't notice was that he was already running towards the man, way ahead of everyone else.

Instead of running, the campist tried to fight back again, so he rose the knife above his head, thinking that Sascha would just bump on him to make him fall, giving him the chance to stab him the back or neck. But Sascha knew better; he had been given the honour, many years ago, to be the glorious opponent of a really bored Herzog who had waken up in the mood for a good hand-to-hand combat. And that day Sascha had learned a lot, especially that the ground is hard.

So he just punched the campist in the stomach, using the impulse of the run to put all his strenght in his fist. The man bent forwards, breathless, and the blue-eyed zombie pushed him to the ground and pressed his head against the snow, watching in complete silence as the campist suffocated.

When the wriggling body immobilized Sascha let it go, like it was a really disgusting thing. He looked at the rest of the troops, some still with the other campists, the others halfway. Then his eyes moved and fixed on Fritz's lifeless body, and when he noticed he was kneeling next to his comrade. Sascha shook his head, slowly, and seized Fritz carefully; that was all his fault, he should have told someone else to go:

'Go to your posts.', he told the others as he started to walk back to the cave. Much for his relief, no one said a word and no one followed him.

He ignored the Doctor, who asked him what had happened, and made his way to the other side of the snow-covered cave, a relatively quiet place. He kneeled on the snow and laid Fritz's body next to him, and smiled sadly:

'My little sadistic bastard; I told you to don't even dare to leave me for 5 minutes... and you do this to me!', he exclaimed, taking a better look at the mortal wound in Fritz's neck. Sascha grimaced; his comrade looked... loathsome, frozen and lifeless, definitely a creature he wouldn't like to meet face to face. Yet when moving, and talking, and smiling, and laughing, Fritz didn't look such a headious creature. He looked human, he looked exactly like he had always looked like. Sascha sighed and started to dig a grave with his hands. 'I can't miss you this much, right? I mean, you're not... dead. Well, now you are, but once Herzog is back you'll be fine... right?', he stopped digging and looked at the dead body, then frowned. 'Fuck you, I already miss you, it feels like we haven't seen each other in years! Did you feel like this too when you watched me dying?', he had no answer, and that made him laugh nervously. 'You know Fritz, I'm glad we can't cry. Otherwise I'd be crying a fucking river...'

He digged the grave and dragged Fritz into it, then closed his eyelids.

* * *

><p><em>Sascha liked Fritz the moment Herzog shoved the younger soldier in the room; he had the look of an innofensive lamb, but was a wolf as big as Sascha. And Sascha felt like he couldn't thank Herzog enough for giving him his lost evil twin. <em>_Together they plotted the most glorious pranks, told the funniest jokes, made the most epic puns. They were murderers of military discipline and nerve-wreckers of unwary officers who tried to nose around the Einsatzgruppe's business. Sascha and Fritz were the master artists of comedy and Herzog was their maecenas._

_Sascha didn't even question all the feelings that came next, because it felt like they belonged there; Fritz was his best friend, his dearest comrade, so for Sascha it was completely natural to care for him, to go wherever he went and having Fritz coming with him wherever he went, it felt natural to comb his hair just to mess it again and to pick on him because he was smaller and only 18 years old, while Sascha was already 20. __When the Einsatzgruppe had to split in a mission Sascha wanted Fritz to go with Herzog, thinking that the brown-eyed soldier would be safer there. He would never forgive himself if he ever let something happen to Fritz. Sometimes he would think that what he felt was maybe a little too much, and that he should talk to Herzog and ask him for advice... but everytime he came to that conclusion he thought the Standartenführer was going to be disappointed with him, or really angry, and Sascha didn't want to lose the friendship between him and Herzog. So he decided not to tell anyone about his feelings, not even Fritz._

_There was a night Sascha suggested they should do something about the poor Wehrmacht soldier who was guarding the main vehicle deposit in Warsaw, who looked like he was dying of boredom, and Fritz had the brilliant idea of writing a fake marching order. Such a masterpiece of a prank needed better planning, so the two soldiers ran upstairs, to Sascha's hotel room, and locked the door to discuss properly. And Fritz's idea was to actually plan a glorious prank, but Sascha, overwhelmed by happiness and excitement, decided they could do that some other time and kissed the younger soldier._

_He had never kissed someone before, had no idea of what he was doing, but that night seemed the perfect time to find out, and Fritz was certainly the right person to help him. Even because the smaller soldier did nothing to stop him... And when Sascha noticed they had already fallen on the bed and their uniform jackets and ties were nowhere to be seen:_

_'Do you have any idea of what we are doing?', Fritz asked suddenly, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. Sascha offered him his best innocent smile and shook his head, slowly:_

_'Do you think that if I knew any of this I'd have drooled you like that?', he asked, but instead of laughing Fritz pouted. Sascha's smile died and his expression became serious. He rolled from over Fritz's body to his side and caressed his cheek, the most affectionate gesture Sascha had ever made, besides punching his comrade's shoulder. 'I'm stupid, you should be used to that by now... but Fritz,' he kissed him again. 'I really mean this.', and the pout vanished from Fritz's lips._

_When Sascha woke up the next morning and found Fritz still sleeping on his arms, he felt the happiest man alive. He had a few minutes to admire the younger soldier before someone unlocked the door and came in, and when that happened Sascha felt like someone had pulled the carpet from under his feet... and when he saw Herzog looking at him and Fritz with big, wide blue eyes, he felt like someone had opened a hole on the ground where he had fallen and he was falling again. That was the first time Sascha was actually afraid of someone; afraid that Herzog could do something to Fritz, afraid that the friendship between him and the Standartenführer was lost. It only became worse when Fritz woke up and began to cry in panick, leaving the tough guy role for Sascha. And if he wasn't representing it very well, he totally screwed up when Herzog mentioned his girlfriend; Sascha didn't like her, he didn't even remember about her, she had no importance! And because she had no importance and no place in his memory, he hadn't tell Fritz about her._

_The disappointment and sadness and anger in that pair of brown eyes was too much, let alone the similar feelings he saw in Herzog's blue eyes. When the Standartenführer left the room, Fritz jumped away from Sascha and started to get dressed:_

_'I had no idea Herzog had copies of the keys!', Sascha tried to explain himself. 'And about my supposed girlfriend... I don't even like her! Fritz, look at me... Fritz!', but the younger soldier was gone, slamming the door after him. The blue-eyed soldier got dressed too and ran after his comrade. He didn't feel surprised when he tried to get in Fritz's room and found the door locked, so all he could do was knocking. But no one answered, even though Sascha heard the younger soldier sob inside the room. Defeated, Sascha went back to his room, closed the door and let his body slip to the floor. He pulled his own hair; there, he had ruined everything! He had hurted the two people he cared the most. He had made Fritz cry, he had turned something that was supposed to be special into something horrible. Sascha felt his eyes sting, yet he fought the urge of crying; he didn't like crying, that was useless and solved nothing. Herzog never cried, so Sascha didn't want to cry too._

_But he eventually broke and cried silently, angry with himself and suddenly terrified that Fritz would never want to talk to him again and that Herzog could do something. He didn't mind if he ended up in Dachau, he deserved that and there were many officers who would be really happy to see him there. But the thought that the same thing could happen to Fritz, to what the Gestapo could do to him... that really scared Sascha._

_He managed to pull himself together and leave the room; he needed to talk to Herzog, beg his pardon, assure Fritz's safety. He didn't find any of his other comrades, so he supposed everybody was downstairs eating breakfast. He just hoped Herzog was in his room. Sascha noticed his hand was shaking when he knocked at the Standartenführer's door, and that the mere seconds he had to wait to be told to get in felt like a painful eternity._

_That was probably the most embarassing talk he ever had with someone, but Herzog was just upset because Sascha hadn't trusted him. It actually made the young soldier feel weightless, and that he couldn't thank Herzog enough. And that definetily he wanted to be an officer just like Herzog. Helping the Standartenführer to chase the rat that was in his room helped Sascha to cheer up, and burning the hotel down after killing the owners helped too._

_They moved to a house, out of the city, and Sascha understood that Herzog had done that to avoid any other incidents. The blue-eyed soldier took it as a good sign when he left his backbag near Fritz's and the younger soldier didn't move to another room of the house, and that Fritz would stay next to him when they were all gathered to play cards or sing or demand Herzog a good story from the trenches or from the many books he had read. Even if the younger soldier didn't talk or look at him, just his presence was enough to assure Sascha that he hadn't ruined everything. Maybe he had just blown off the roof..._

_So he left Fritz alone for a week, and during a rainy day and taking the chance that everybody was too busy building little castles with ammo and grenades, Sascha grabbed Fritz by the wrist and took him to the attick of the house. The younger soldier didn't protest and sat quietly on the floor while Sascha closed the trapdoor:_

_'So... about what happened...', Sascha started, sitting in front of him and biting his lower lip nervously. 'I... I really wanted it to be special for you...'_

_'You have a girlfriend.', Fritz accused, and was that jealously in his voice? Sascha shook his head:_

_'I don't like her, it was my mother's idea! She wants me to marry that spoiled brat because she has money!', Fritz raised an eyebrow. 'And I'm really going to marry and then ask for the divorce in the same day! Then everybody will hate me and they'll all leave me alone once and for all!'_

_'You're insane!', Fritz exclaimed with disbelief. This time Sascha smiled and took Fritz's hands on his:_

_'And once we win the war, we could buy a little house for the two of us!'_

_'You are insane.', the brown-eyed soldier repeated, even though he didn't seem as convincing as before. Sascha's smile grew wider:_

_'I really mean what happened between us.', he assured. 'I'm just... I'm just a simpleton with a machine-gun and a pretty uniform, I can't even tell you decently how much I like you... how much I care for you...', Sascha's smile died. 'I even considered borrowing some of Herzog's books to learn nice things to tell you, but those are just too many books and the books are too big!'_

_And Fritz laughed, and Sascha understood he was forgiven. He allowed himself to smile, relieved, and pulled Fritz to a hug. They stayed like that for a while, listening to the rain outside, until the younger soldier pulled away, his face serious again:_

_'What did Herzog say... about us?', he asked shyly:_

_'That I should have told him... He's not angry, though... He's a great man. But...', Sascha bit his lower lip again, and felt suddenly anguished; he hadn't planned that, he just knew they had to do it. '... we can't... you know...'_

_'I get it...', Fritz sighed sadly and nodded:_

_'So... «Here lies...»?'_

_'May Týr bless His soul...'_

_'Týr is the god of war, you retarded...', and they both laughed, or forced themselves to laugh, because none of them wanted to cry. They stood up and Sascha opened the trapdoor again. 'I guess we can always pick this up, once we smash the enemy.'_

_'I guess so.', Fritz agreed, looking down at his boots. _

_Somehow they managed to act like nothing had happened. Sascha couldn't really understand how, so he concluded Fritz and he were just too awesome to be explained. His feelings were there, though, and sometimes he would wonder if Fritz's were there too._

_Some weeks before their 3 months leave Herzog commented with Sascha that he was planning to go to his little home-village. Sascha had no idea of what to do during the leave; being in a place where he didn't have to fight or carry weapons suddenly seemed too boring, so he hurried to have everybody's adresses so that they could play football together. Luckily, most of the Einsatzgruppe soldiers lived in Berlin._

_When they arrived to Berlin and the group split in different directions, Sascha found himself taking the longer way home just for the pleasure of being outside for a little longer; his parents sometimes could be really annoying and over-protective, and they somehow had missed the part that Sascha was a competent soldier of the Waffen-SS, and not everyone could join the SS. As soon as Sascha stepped in his parent's appartment they both hugged him and kissed him and asked too many things and said that his cousins were visiting and that his leave was the perfect occasion for a good family-time._

_One day after his arrival Sascha left the house, going straight to the SS barracks of Berlin. He was wearing civilian clothes, and after so much time with a uniform and boots he really hated those civilians clothes and shoes. He wondered how Herzog would look like in civilians clothes, but that was a very difficult thing to imagine, even for someone as creative as Sascha. When he reached the barracks he showed his ID and dog tag and said he was going to meet Standartenführer Herzog, and the sentinel let him in. Sascha knew were was Herzog's dorm, he had been there once with the Standartenführer before they left to Moravia. So he crossed the large yard and headed to the southern dormitories, exclusive for the officers, and climbed the stairs to the last floor. Herzog's room was the last one in the long corridor. He knocked at the door and got in, expecting to find Herzog doing exercise, or reading, or sleeping, or leaving paperwork aside for him. _

_The last thing he expected was to find Herzog like that, lying fully dressed, curled up and with his head hidden under the pillow. Sascha frowned:_

_'Herr Standartenführer?', he called, but the officer didn't react. Sascha began to feel nervous and made his way towards the bed, where he sat near the Standartenführer's big body. 'Herzog?'_

_Herzog turned around to face him and uncovered his head. Sascha frowned again:_

_'What happened to make you cry this hard?', he asked, truely concerned. He watched as Herzog's blue, reddened and puffy eyes filled with tears again and tried not to panick; maybe Herzog had gone to visit his family and had found they were dead... 'Herzog, you're scaring me! What happened? Please, tell me! You know you can trust me, right? We're comrades and friends!'_

_And Sascha watched as the officer opened his mouth to talk, despair written all over his face... but Herzog said nothing. A few lonely tears rolled down Herzog's face, and the young soldier frowned lightly as the Standartenführer's face slowly ran out of emotions:_

_'Herzog...' Sascha begged. 'Herzog, talk to me. Whatever happened... come on, you can tell me!', but Herzog just looked at him. Then the Standartenführer stood up and walked to the full-lenght mirror on the wall:_

_'I'm fine, Sascha.', he mumbled. But even his voice was changed, sounding deeper. The young soldier observed his officer look himself in the mirror and grimace, and he then undressed his uniform jacket and shirt._

_Sascha had no idea why Herzog was still grimacing; not every 42 years old man had a body like that, let alone the officers of that age, who usually became too fat or too skinny. He sighed:_

_'Herzog...?', he called again, quietly. 'Do you want to talk about it?'_

_'There is nothing to talk about.', Herzog replayed and turned away from the mirror to look at Sascha. Herzog's face was now completely blank, but what disturbed Sascha the most was that pair of blue eyes, so intense, so empty. He nodded and left._

_From the barracks he went straight to Fritz's house, at the other side of the city. Fritz lived with his mother and younger sister; his mother was very young and was really pleased in meeting him:_

_'He's always talking about you.', she said after they had talked a little in the living-room. 'He's in the bedroom, come with me.'_

_He followed Fritz's mother into the house and she left him at Fritz's door. He got in the room; it was small and had two beds, one for Fritz and one for his little sister. Fritz was lying on the bed, reading a magazine, but as he noticed the older soldier at the door he put the magazine aside and changed to a sitting position:_

_'I thought you'd come yesterday.', he said. Sascha got in the room and sat next to him in the bed. 'Why so serious, what's wrong?'_

_'Something happened to Herzog, but he didn't tell me what.', Sascha mumbled and crossed his arms. 'I went to see him a while ago. I'll have to baby-sit my cousins and I thought that, since Herzog doesn't have a family, I could invite him to come with us to the Zoo. You'd come with us too, of course...'_

_'And let me see, he declined your offering... Herzog and children, really?', Fritz said with a smirk. But Sascha made a face:_

_'He cried for the whole night! I'm telling you, something happened to him yesterday, but he didn't want to tell me what! He was acting so weird, like he wanted, but at the same time he didn't want to tell me!'_

_'Maybe it's something embarassing.', Fritz suggested, crossing his legs:_

_'Embarassing? Fritz, he caught us in bed! How come that he doesn't want to tell me what's bothering him?', Sascha said, utterly indignated. He felt hurt, and betrayed, and abandoned. And useless. The brown-eyed soldier frowned lightly and rested a hand on his shoulder:_

_'I don't know him as you do... but... you found him crying. Look at Herzog, he's not the type of crying. Maybe... maybe someone he knew died, or something like that, and then you found him like that, and maybe it was just too much and he didn't know how to react. Just... just let him calm down a little.'_

_'I know what I saw, Fritz! Something is wrong!', Sascha exclaimed. 'And the bastard doesn't let me help him!'_

_'Just give him a moment.', the younger soldier opined. The blue-eyed soldier sighed and pouted, looking down. 'He's tough, whatever happened he'll overcome that.'_

_'I hope so.', Sascha grumbled._

_But, just like he feared, Herzog didn't overcome whatever happened to him. Herzog became cold, and distant, and Sascha felt like a child who lost his parents in the crowd. He didn't make the so promised Officer Course, instead the Einsatzgruppe moved to Norway, to the very north. __Sascha was too aggrived and didn't try to talk to Herzog again, even though he knew that the Standartenführer needed someone to talk to, urgently; he knew that Herzog couldn't act like a machine forever. Sometimes at night, or during a patrol, he'd look at Fritz, right next to him, and feel extremely thankful for having such a friend._

_His last thought before dying was that at least Fritz was there to take care of Herzog, and that surely Herzog would take care of Fritz._

* * *

><p>But now that Fritz was dead, Sascha felt too fragile to face the others. He couldn't even count on Herzog's reassuring presence. He shook his head and covered his comrade's body with snow:<p>

'Goddamit Herzog, where are you?', he asked in a low whisper before standing up and walking away, trying to pull himself together.

Now he knew how difficult it was commanding, and how horrible it was to feel those bloodstains on his hands, and he felt despicable for simply giving up on the Standartenführer.

* * *

><p><strong>Weeeeeee, review?<strong>


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